Nigerian Eritreans - The history of Hausa and Bargo in Eritrea

The Hausa and Bargo ethnic groups of Eritrea, who collectively go by the name of  "Tokharir", are Muslim people who migrated to Eritrea from Nigeria (2001, Johnathan Bascom, p. 70). Their settlement in Southwest Eritrea was associated with rising exploitation of the peasantry in Northern Nigeria and religious pilgrimages to Mecca (2001, Johnathan Bascom, p. 70). Their ancestors, who first settled in Southwest Eritrea and eastern Sudan during the late eighteenth and especially the nineteenth century (1999 Giorgio Ausenda, p. 179), were immigrants returning from the pilgrimage to Mecca who quite often brought their wives along and even begot children on the way (1999, Giorgio Ausenda, p. 179). To survive along the way, which took them several years, and pay for the Red Sea crossing, they stopped during the agricultural season and worked as farmhands or sharecroppers (1999, Giorgio Ausenda, p. 179). As a result of this sporadic immigration, estimated by Burkhardt at about 1,000 per year, there is now a large Hausa settlement in the Gash Delta (1999, Giorgio Ausenda, p. 179). Conservative estimates suggest that more than thirty thousand Hausa and Bargo ethnic groups were once living in Eritrea when conflict with Ethiopia escalated in the mid-1970s (2001, Johnathan Bascom, p. 70).



Sponsored Ads