Ethiopian Civil War
| Ethiopian Civil War | |||||||||
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| Part of the Eritrean War of Independence, the Ethiopian–Somali conflict, the Oromo conflict, the Cold War, and the Revolutions of 1989 | |||||||||
Clockwise from top: TPLF soldiers gather in Addis Ababa, 1991; T-62 tank destroyed shortly after the fall of the Derg; EPLF rebels on top of a captured GAZ-66; EPLF infantry walks by a destroy Ethiopian column after the Battle of Afabet; Ethiopian soldiers huge rally in support of the Derg military junta; | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
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TPLF EPLF EPDM EPRP MEISON EDU OLF WSLF ONLF ALF IFLO |
Derg (1974–1987) Military advisers:
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Meles Zenawi Isaias Afwerki Tamrat Layne Elemo Qiltu † |
Mengistu Haile Mariam Tesfaye Gebre Kidan Fikre Selassie Wogderess | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
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141,000 (1991) 110,000 (1990) 13,000 (1991) | 230,000 (1991) | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
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≈400,000–579,000 killed ~1,200,000 deaths from famine | |||||||||
| History of Ethiopia |
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| History of Eritrea |
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| Eritrea portal |
The Ethiopian Civil War was a civil war in Ethiopia and present-day Eritrea, fought between the Ethiopian military junta known as the Derg and Ethiopian-Eritrean anti-government rebels from 12 September 1974 to 28 May 1991.
The Derg overthrew the Ethiopian Empire and Emperor Haile Selassie in a coup d'état on 12 September 1974, establishing Ethiopia as a Marxist–Leninist state under a military junta and provisional government. Various nationalist opposition groups of ideological affiliations ranging from Communist to anti-Communist, often drawn from a specific ethnic background, carried out armed resistance to the Soviet-backed Derg.
Groups like the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF) and the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF) had already been fighting against the Ethiopian Empire in the northern Eritrean War of Independence and southern Ogaden insurgency. The Derg used large scale counterinsurgency military campaigns and the Qey Shibir (Red Terror) to repress the rebels. Other rebel fronts such as the Tigrayan Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) and Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) also increasingly grew in strength over the 1970s. In 1977 Somalia invaded to back the WSLF in the Ogaden, delivering a major blow to the Derg and triggering a large scale Soviet and Cuban military intervention that drove back Somali forces. While this diversion briefly enabled Eritrean rebels to advance, a Soviet‑armed Derg counter‑offensive soon reversed their gains as well.
By the mid-1980s, various issues such as the 1983–1985 famine, economic decline, and other after-effects of Derg policies ravaged Ethiopia, increasing popular support for the rebels. In 1984, the Eritrean rebels regained the initiative for the first time since the counter-offensive. The Derg dissolved its military junta in 1987, becoming civilianized and establishing the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (PDRE) under the Workers' Party of Ethiopia (WPE) in an attempt to maintain its rule. The Soviet Union began ending its support for the Derg in the late-1980s and the government was overwhelmed by the increasingly victorious rebel groups.
The Ethiopian Civil War ended on 28 May 1991 when the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition of left-wing ethnic rebel groups, entered the capital Addis Ababa and President Mengistu Haile Mariam fled the country. The Derg regime was dissolved and replaced with the TPLF-led Transitional Government of Ethiopia.
The Ethiopian Civil War left at least 1.4 million people dead, with 1 million of the deaths being related to famine and the remainder from combat and other violence.