Ethiopia’s House of Federation has approved the formation of a 12th regional state in the country.
The new administrative area will be called South Ethiopia Region, the House of Federation said in a statement on Wednesday.
Ethiopia’s upper house of parliament said it considered the referendum held in six zones and five districts in the southern part of the country.
The voters approved the formation of a 12th regional state in the referendum held in February 2023.
Several ethnic groups
In 2022, nearly 97% of voters in a local referendum approved a proposal to create Ethiopia's 11th region, which was named South-West Region.
Ethiopia has several ethnic communities, with the Oromo, Amhara, and Tigreans making up more than three-quarters of the population.
There has been an increased pressure from the different ethnic groups to create their own regions. This has often sparked fears of political unrest in the country.
Ethiopia’s Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR) is the most diverse in the country, containing dozens of ethnicities and language groups.
