Battle of Jijiga
Part ofOgaden War
M47 tank of Ethiopian forces, destroyed after first battle of Jijiga.
Date September 1977 – 5 March 1978 Location Jijiga, Ethiopia Result Somali victory The entirety ofHaud is temporarily occupied by theSomali National Army and theWSLF
Belligerents
Ethiopia Cuba	Somalia
Strength
1977: 25,000 soldiers 108 tanks, mostlyM47s andM41s	1977: unknown soldiers 124 tanks, mostlyT-54/55 1978: 30,000 soldiers 30,000 militias[1]
Casualties and losses
1977: Ethiopia: 43 tanks destroyed 28APCs[2] 1978: Cuba: 6T-62 destroyed 8 T-62 damaged[3]

TheBattle of Jijiga was a series of battles that was part of theOgaden War. The battles were fought inJijiga, Ethiopia and was one the largest battles of the conflict.^[4]

In mid-September 1977, during the Somali invasion of the Ethiopian Somali region, Somalia National Army forces attacked the Ethiopian held garrison in Jijiga. By September more than 90% of Somali Region was in SNA control and on September 12 the Somalia forces captured Jijiga,^[4] a strategic success. Jijiga overlooked the nearbyMarda Pass where Ethiopian troops were entrenched, halting any further Somali advance deeper.

Local defenders at Jijiga garrison consisted of roughly 25,000 Ethiopian infantrymen.^{[citation needed]} The SNA attack on Jijiga came the same day Dire Dawa came under siege.

The Ethiopian army had begun to receive Soviet aid by the time of the battle, however morale was low and when a British journalist visited the battlefield afterwards, he claimed that large quantities of weapons had been abandoned by fleeing Ethiopian forces.^[5]

124 Somali tanks, mostlyT-55s,^[6] defeated 108 Ethiopian tanks, mainlyM47 Pattons andM41 Walker Bulldogs.^[7] The Ethiopians lost 43 tanks during the battle, including 11T-34/85 and 32 US made tanks as well as 28Armoured personnel carriers.^[2]

Parts of the battle, including the massacre of both Jijiga's Somali population by the Ethiopian Army and the Somali army's shelling and sniping of refugees attempting to flee the city, are described byNega Mezlekia in his autobiographical book,Notes from the Hyena's Belly.^[8]

After the Somali advance onHarar had been turned back at theBattle of Harar, the Ethiopian forces launched acounter-attack against theSomali Army (starting on January 22, 1978) with the help ofCuban forces. The Ethiopian forcesoutflanked the Somali forces and inflicted major losses on them. On March 5, 1978 the Ethiopians recaptured Jijiga and on March 9, 1978, Somalia's President,Siad Barre announced that all Somali forces would leave the Somali Region of Ethiopia, ending the war.^[4]

This article about a battle is astub. You can help Wikipedia byexpanding it.

• v
• t
• e

• Battles of the Ogaden War
• 1977 in Ethiopia
• 1978 in Ethiopia
• Battles in 1977
• Battles in 1978
• Massacres committed by Ethiopia
• History of Jijiga
• Massacres in 1978
• 20th-century mass murder in Ethiopia
• Massacres of the Ethiopian Civil War
• Massacres of Somalis
• Battle stubs

• All articles with dead external links
• Articles with dead external links from August 2025
• Articles with permanently dead external links
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from May 2014
• Ethiopia articles missing geocoordinate data
• All articles needing coordinates
• Articles missing coordinates without coordinates on Wikidata
• All stub articles