Siege of Saïo
1941 CE.
Shown on the map at 8.530°, 34.800°.
The siege of Saïo or battle of Saïo took place during the East African Campaign of World War II. Belgo-Congolese troops, British Commonwealth forces and local resistance fighters besieged the fort at the market town of Saïo in south-western Ethiopia in 1941. The siege lasted for several months, culminating in an Allied attack on the Italian garrison thereby forcing it to surrender. In the first months of 1941, British and Belgian colonial forces attacked Italian East Africa from the colony of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. By the end of March, they had seized the town of Gambela and begun containing retreating Italian forces, which were massing on a plateau in the mountain town of Saïo (presently Dembidolo) under the command of General Carlo De Simone and later General Pietro Gazzera. The British forces withdrew the following month (to start an offensive in Western Ethiopia) and the Belgians advanced down the road to Saïo. The Italians repelled them and they were forced to hold their positions along a nearby brook. Almost no fighting took place in May as heavy rain bogged down the Belgians and turned their supply line from Sudan into mud, creating a food shortage.
Text from the Wikipedia article Siege of Saïo, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.