Humera

Humera is a town in the Kafta Humera district of western Tigrai, at a low elevation of about 585 m and bordered to the north by the Tekezé River — the last Ethiopian town before the Sudanese and Eritrean borders, making it a strategically important gateway to Sudan. Unlike Ethiopia's ancient highland capitals, Humera is a young settlement that grew into a major agricultural centre only in the second half of the 20th century, after large-scale mechanized farming took hold in the Setit-Humera lowlands from the late 1950s onward. The area is best known internationally for the "Humera type" of sesame, prized for its uniform white color and sweet, nutty flavor and used as an industry standard for premium tahini and halva; sorghum, cotton, and gum arabic are also significant crops. The frontier location has a difficult history — in April 1967, Sudanese border forces seized farm equipment and crops and detained hundreds of Ethiopian farmers in a violent border incident.

By Car / Road

Humera is reached by road from Mekelle via Shire, roughly 250 km to the west.

• Sesame markets and farmland: Humera is the commercial center of one of Ethiopia's most productive agricultural lowlands.
• Tekezé River: Forms the town's northern boundary.

• Shire — 100 km east.
• Mekelle — 250 km east.
• Sudan — across the border.