Gode

Gode (Godey, ጎዴ) is a city in the Somali Region of Ethiopia. Located in the Shabelle Zone, the city was the capital of the Somali Region until 1995 when Jijiga became the capital

Gode Airport, also known as the Ugas Mirad Airport (IATA code GDE), has regular flights operated by Ethiopian Airlines. A bridge over the Shebelle River was built near Gode in 1968.

History
During the 1960s, in spite of the threat of tropical water diseases, the Ethiopian government launched the Webi Shabelle Valley Irrigation Programme which was based in Gode. However, attacks by the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF) on French hydrologists resulted in the programme being scrapped.

Before the start of the Ogaden War, Gode was garrisoned by the 5th brigade of the 4th division of the Ethiopian Army, distributed around the town in five military camps. Gode's capture near the end of July 1977 by the Western Somali Liberation Front allowed the Somali forces to consolidate their hold on the Ogaden forces and concentrate on an advance that culminated in the capture of Jijiga. According to the historical notes of the Somali Army, Gode was liberated on July 24, 1977 by the regular Somali Army under the leadership of then General Abdullahi Ahmed Irro and his deputy Major Abdulkadir Koosaar.

Despite the end of the Ogaden War, the WSLF retained full control of the Gode region long after the Somali Army had systematically withdrawn from the Ogaden in March 1978. Ethiopian units under Brigadier-General Demisse Bulto, commander of the First Revolutionary Army, recaptured Gode during Operation Lash on November 1980. Ethiopian troops used the city as one of its three bases to successfully clear the rest of eastern Ethiopia of Somali guerrillas by 3 December.

Gode has been at the center of several recent famines: one in 1981; the next in 1991, which required the UN High Commission for Refugees to airlift food to 80,000 people stranded outside the town; and most recently in 2000, which caused Gode to swell to a reported size of 100,000 inhabitants. This led John Graham to grimly remark in the Addis Observer, "The main claims to fame of Gode are not inspiring - they are famine and war."

In 1989, the Ethiopian government inaugurated the Malka Wakana Power Plant which was built by a Czechoslovakian firm. The rise of plantations in the nearby Webi Shabelle valley also resulted in the town’s growth as sedentary farmers from other parts of Ethiopia settled within the town.

On 26 July 1994, the then-current mayor, Muktar Aden, Gedden was murdered. For several weeks afterward, it was not clear who was responsible, as no individual or group had taken responsibility or had been accused.

Demographics
According to the 1997 national census, the city's total population was 45,755, of whom 26,081 were males and 19,674 were females. The ethnic breakdown was 99%. Gode is primarily inhabited by the Somalis (98.3%), and other ethnic groups make up 1.7% of the population. Based on the 1997 National census, 11,044 inhabitants, or 24.1% of the population, were in school, of whom 2,766 were males and 1,563 were female. On the other hand, 35,478 people, or 77.5% of the overall population, were illiterate, of whom 17,273 were male and 18,205 female.

Based on 2010 figures from the Central Statistical Agency, Gode has an estimated total population of 950,782, of whom 488,235 were males and 442,089 were females. Gode is the largest town in the Gode woreda.

Climate
Gode has a hot arid climate (Köppen BWh) with uniformly very hot weather and scanty, extremely variable rainfall. The average annual temperature in Gode is 28.8 °C, and virtually every afternoon exceeds 32 C, while mornings seldom fall below 20 C.

There are two short wet seasons in April–May and October–November which provide 291 mm of precipitation – about ninety percent of the mean annual rainfall of 325 mm. These wet seasons are caused by brief passages of the Intertropical Convergence Zone over the region; however, they are extremely erratic even for an arid region. The wettest calendar year between 1967 and 1999 was 1967 with 754.2 mm of precipitation and the driest 1980 with 38.8 mm of precipitation.