Girawa (woreda)

Girawa (also called Girawa Meyu Mulike) is one of the woredas in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia. Part of the Misraq (East) Hararghe Zone, Girawa is bordered on the south by Gola Odana Meyu Muluke, on the west by Bedeno, on the north by Kurfa Chele, and on the east by Fedis. The administrative center of the woreda is Girawa; other towns include Megala.

The altitude of this woreda ranges from 500 to 3230 meters above sea level; Geyle is the highest point; other significant peaks include Mount Gara Muleta. A survey of the land in Girawa (released in 1996) shows that 54.3% is arable or cultivable, 4.4% pasture, 1.2% forest, 21.8% built-up, and the remaining 18.3% is considered degraded or otherwise unusable. Khat, fruits and vegetables are important cash crops.Coffee is also an important cash crop; over 5,000 hectares are planted with it.

Industry in the woreda includes 14 grain mills employing 45 people, as well as 95 registered businesses including wholesalers, retailers and service providers. Deposits of feldspar, mica and amazonite are known, but they have not been developed. There were 46 Farmers Associations with 43,373 members and 4 Farmers Service Cooperatives with 4965 members. Girawa has 75 kilometers of dry-weather and 12 of all-weather road, for an average road density of 60.3 kilometers per 1000 square kilometers. About 21.8% of the urban and 3.2% of the rural population have access to drinking water.

Girawa gained publicity in early April 1999, when the media learned of a bloody war between lions and spotted hyenas in the lowlands in the Gobele wilderness, southeast of the administrative center for the woreda. What initially was thought to be a delayed April’s Fool Joke drew attention from the international press, while Ethiopian Television thrilled its viewers with footage showing the carnivores fighting. In its April 20 issue, the Ethiopian Herald said that after the situation "returned to normal", the death toll stood at 6 lions and 35 hyenas – the felines apparently having gained the victory. A local inhabitant was quoted as saying the lion-versus-hyena war was an "old blood feud" going back 45 years, when a lion escaped from emperor Haile Selassie’s palace menagerie in Harar and wreaked havoc on a hyena family; since then the hyenas have sought to extract vengeance on the lions.

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Wikipedia