Wars, politics & history

Ethiopian Civil War

from 12 September 1974 to 4 June 1991

The Ethiopian Civil War was fought between the Derg, the military committee that overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, and a variety of rebel groups. The Derg, which became dominated by Mengistu Haile Mariam, installed a Marxist-Leninist government backed by the Soviet Union, and in the Red Terror it killed large numbers of its opponents. It faced the Eritrean independence movement, which had been fighting since the 1960s, as well as the Tigray People's Liberation Front and other groups in the north and the Somali invasion of 1977. A devastating famine in the mid-1980s worsened the country's suffering. The rebels took Addis Ababa in 1991, ending the regime, and Eritrea became independent two years later.

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This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.