Dikhil

Dikhil (دخيل) is a town in the western Dikhil Region of Djibouti. Lying east of Lake Abbe, It is situated about southwest of Djibouti City and north of the border with Ethiopia. It serves as the administrative centre of the Dikhil Region, and is home to the Afar and Somali ethnic groups. The town develops gardens and fruit trees. In 1986, the survey work sites were performed by R. Joussaume and researchers ISERST. The engravings oldest discovered to date are from the fourth or third millennium BC, the most famous is the site of Handoga near Dikhil where the ruins of a village squares sub circular dry stone delivered different objects. Including ceramic shards matching vases used brazier, or containers that can hold water, several choppers and microliths, blades, drills, trenchers basalt, rhyolite or obsidian. Also a pearl orange coralline, three glass paste, etc.. There were no trace of metal object. The village was originally built around the well of Harrou near a wadi, with houses constructed of mud and stone, the Afar and Issa were the founders of Dikhil. As the village continued to grow after the established of the French Somaliland. Most of the inhabitants earned their living through animal husbandry and commerce, and used a well for drinking water. In December 1927, the French colonial authorities sent a military detachment to reconnoiter the region, in order to prepare the installation of a defense post, intended to secure the borders of the French Somaliland. The first administrative division of the territory, in 1914, defined two zones besides the city of Djibouti: the districts "Dankali" and "Issa". With the occupation of the territory at the end of the 1920s, the district circles of "Tadjoura" and "Gobad-Dikhil" are created, in 1930, became the capital of a new administrative district, called the Circle of Dikhil. When Wilfred Thesiger visited Dikhil in May 1934, he was struck by "a most impregnable fort here" recently constructed by the French colonial authorities.