Eritrean independence and the border war
Five years after Eritrea's peaceful separation, the two countries fight a ferocious war over a dusty border town, leaving tens of thousands dead and a frozen conflict.
- The Ethiopian Revolution: War in the Horn of Africa — Gebru Tareke, Yale University Press (2009)
- Ethiopia — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- The Nobel Peace Prize 2019: Abiy Ahmed Ali — Norwegian Nobel Committee, NobelPrize.org (2019)
- A History of Ethiopia — Harold G. Marcus, University of California Press (2002)
Eritrea, an Italian colony from 1890, was federated with Ethiopia in 1952 and annexed by Haile Selassie in 1962, sparking a thirty-year war of independence. After the rebels won in 1991, Eritreans voted almost unanimously for independence in a UN-observed referendum in 1993, and the new government in Addis Ababa accepted the result.
- The Ethiopian Revolution: War in the Horn of Africa — Gebru Tareke, Yale University Press (2009)
- Ethiopia — Encyclopaedia Britannica
In May 1998 a clash over the town of Badme escalated into a war fought with trenches, artillery and human-wave assaults, killing tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides; estimates commonly run to 70,000–100,000. Ethiopia pushed into Eritrea in 2000, and the Algiers Agreement ended the fighting that December. A boundary commission awarded Badme to Eritrea in 2002, but Ethiopia refused to withdraw, and a tense “no war, no peace” lasted until 2018, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed accepted the ruling and the borders briefly opened, an achievement recognised by his Nobel Peace Prize.
- Ethiopia — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- The Nobel Peace Prize 2019: Abiy Ahmed Ali — Norwegian Nobel Committee, NobelPrize.org (2019)
- A History of Ethiopia — Harold G. Marcus, University of California Press (2002)
The war tore through families. Both governments expelled people from each other’s territory, and tens of thousands of people of Eritrean origin were deported from Ethiopia, often at short notice and losing their property. Eritrea, under President Isaias Afwerki, used the “no war, no peace” years to justify indefinite national service, which drove large numbers of young Eritreans to flee abroad. When the border opened in 2018, scenes of relatives embracing after twenty years moved the whole region.
- Ethiopia — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- A History of Ethiopia — Harold G. Marcus, University of California Press (2002)
Why it matters today
Many Ethiopians still have relatives in Eritrea, and many feel the loss of the coastline and the port of Assab, which left Ethiopia landlocked. The 2018 peace briefly reunited families, but relations soured again after Eritrea's role in the Tigray war. Access to the sea remains an emotional national issue.