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Jaldessa (also transliterated Jeldessa, Gildessa) is a village in eastern Ethiopia. Located in the Shinile Zone of the Somali Region, this settlement has a latitude and longitude of 9°43′N 42°08′E.
The Central Statistical Agency has not published an estimate for the population of this village. It is located in Shinile woreda.
History
During the 19th century, Jaldessa was an important station on the trade route between Harar and the Red Sea coast. W.C. Barker, writing in 1842, mentions it as a stopping place in the territory of the Nole Oromo, on the caravan route between Zeila and Harar. The party of Italian explorer Count Pietro Porro was ambushed and slaughtered at Jaldessa in April 1886, which provided Menelik II of Shewa with an excuse to attack Harar. Between the Shewan victory at Chelenqo and the foundation of Dire Dawa, Jaldessa was the seat of the local Ethiopian governor. The governor between the 1890s and the foundation of Dire Dawa (1902) was Ato Mersha Nahusenay. The foundation of that city, as well as the creation of the Addis Ababa - Djibouti Railway diminished the importance of Jaldessa.
Early in the Ogaden War, Jaldessa was captured by Somali units as they closed in on Dire Dawa; it was recaptured 4 February 1978 by the Ethiopian Ninth Division with Cuban tank and artillery shock troops.
In 2008, the United States of America selected Jaldessa as one of seven locations where servicemen of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa worked with Ethiopian veterinarians to vaccinate more than 20,000 animals: cattle were inoculated against blackleg and anthrax, while sheep and goats were inoculated against contagious caprine pleuro-pneumonia and peste des petits ruminants.