Sodo, Sidama Region, Ethiopia

🇪🇹 Sodo (ሶዶ) or Wolaita Sodo (ወላይታ ሶዶ) is a city in south-central Ethiopia. The administrative centre of the Wolaita Zone. It has an elevation between 1,600 and 2,100 metres (5,200 and 6,900 feet) above sea level.

Sodo is a centre of major health and education institutions in Ethiopia. Soddo Christian Hospital has one of the 10 surgical training centres in Africa. The hospital provides a full range of medical, and surgical services, including Orthopedic and General, Maternity, and Pediatrics. Wolaita Sodo University Teaching Referral Hospital is also located in this town and it serves around two million people. The total number of beds in the hospital was 200; out of which 60 beds were in Obstetrics and Gynecology department.

Sodo's amenities include digital and mobile telephone access, postal service, 24-hour electrical service, two banks, and a hospital. Sodo is also the seat of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Vicariate of Sodo-Hosaena.

In the early 1930s, Sodo was described as the only locality in Wolaita district deserving to be called a town. It had a Saturday market, a telephone line to the capital, and a weekly mail courier. Italian ground troops captured Sodo on 27 January 1937; it was there that two Italian generals with their divisions – Liberati with his 25th Division, and Bacarri with his 101st Division – surrendered on 22 May 1941, after a minimum of resistance. The British also captured the remnants of the 21st Division, who had escaped around the north end of Lake Abijatta. The loot included more than 4,000 officers and men, 6 medium tanks, 4 light tanks, 100 machine guns, ammunition and supplies.

By 1958 Sodo was one of 27 places in Ethiopia ranked as First Class Township. A branch of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia was established between 1965-68. The administrator of Sodo Zuria woreda and one-time student activist, Melaku Gebre Egziahber, was arrested in 1975 for encouraging peasants and the urban poor to rise up against "exploiters" in the town. In 1984, a refugee camp was established in the town for the victims of that year's famine.

Education Established in 2007, Wolaita Sodo University (WSU) is a non-profit public higher education institution located in Sodo. WSU offers courses and programs leading to officially recognised higher education degrees in several areas of study. The university has campuses in different areas, including Dawuro Tarcha Campus. The city has numerous secondary schools of which the prominent ones are Wolaita Sodo Secondary & preparatory school and Wolita Liqa School.

Transport Sodo is served by an airport. A 166-kilometre (103 mi) road connecting Sodo with Chida, whose construction had started in 1994, was completed by early 1999. Featuring an 80-metre (260 ft) Bailey bridge across the Omo river and five other bridges, this road cost 255 million Birr, and reduced the distance between the Regional capital at Awassa and Mizan Teferi to 400 km (250 mi). According to the SNNPR's Bureau of Finance and Economic Development, as of 2003.