 ignited a fresh controversy after publishing a map that depicts Wolqayit, Tsegede....){kind=link}
By: Getahun Tsegaye
Staff Reporter
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has ignited a fresh controversy after publishing a map that depicts Wolqayit, Tsegede, Setit-Humera Zone, Tselemti, and Raya within the administrative boundaries of Ethiopia’s Amhara region. The move has drawn immediate condemnation from the opposition Salyasay Woyane Party, which labeled the map “misleading and illegal.”
The party asserts that these territories were seized during the recent Tigray war and, under Ethiopia’s constitution, remain legally part of the Tigray region. Given the absence of official border demarcation since the cessation of hostilities, the Salyasay Woyane Party has formally demanded that OCHA rectify the mapping.
Borkena published stories in April 2025 on geopolitical and historical complexities of the Wolkait-Setit Humera zone, a region claimed by both Tigray and Amhara. It is available here.
The dispute over these territories is deeply embedded in Ethiopia’s federal arrangement and the contested legacy of boundary demarcations established during the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF)’s period of dominance in federal politics. Borkena highlights that Wolkait, Tsegede, and Setit Humera were historically administered under Gondar/Begemder (now Amhara) province before the 1991 restructuring that followed the fall of the Derg regime.
“The current tension stems from an administrative rearrangement that many in the Amhara community never accepted,” Borkena previously reported. “When the TPLF-led government reclassified the area as part of the Tigray region, it created a long-simmering grievance among Amharas, who consider the shift as historically and legally unjustified.”
It also pointed to the mass displacement and alleged human rights violations committed in the area both during and after the conflict as key factors fueling the present-day contestation.
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