Eritrean–Ethiopian War

Part of the conflicts in the Horn of Africa

Date	6 May 1998 – 25 May 2000 (2 years, 2 weeks and 5 days)
Location	Eritrean–Ethiopian border, southern Eritrea, Tigray
Result	Stalemate Eritrean failure to push out Ethiopian occupation of some disputed territories and the border town of Badme and Tsorona. Ethiopian failure to meet an access point to the Red Sea through Assab, Eritrea. Refugee displacement and humanitarian crises of Eritreans and Ethiopians. Algiers Agreement (2000)
Territorial changes	Each side occupies some of the disputed territory

Belligerents

Eritrea

Ethiopia

Commanders and leaders

Strength

100,000–120,000 (1998)

150,000 (2000)

300,000–350,000

Casualties and losses

19,000 killed
(Eritrean claim)
67,000 killed
(Ethiopian claim)
20,000–50,000 or 150,000 killed
(other estimates)

34,000–60,000 killed (Ethiopian claim)
123,000 killed
(Ethiopian clandestine opposition claim)
150,000 killed
(other estimates)

70,000–100,000 killed on both sides
(ICG estimate)
300,000 killed on both sides
(other estimates)

Stalemate

The Eritrean–Ethiopian War took place from May 1998 to June 2000 between Ethiopia and Eritrea, forming one of the conflicts in the Horn of Africa. While Eritrea and Ethiopia—two of the world's poorest countries—spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the war and suffered tens of thousands of casualties as a direct consequence of the conflict, only minor border changes resulted.

According to a ruling by an international commission in The Hague, Eritrea broke international law and triggered the war by invading Ethiopia. At the end of the war, Ethiopia held all of the disputed territory and had advanced into Eritrea. After the war ended, the Eritrea–Ethiopia Boundary Commission, a body founded by the UN, established that Badme, the disputed territory at the heart of the conflict, belongs to Eritrea. As of 2017^[update], Ethiopia still occupies the territory near Badme, including the town of Badme.

From 1961 until 1991, Eritrea had fought a long war of independence against Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Civil War began on 12 September 1974 when the Marxist Derg staged a coup d'état against Emperor Haile Selassie. It lasted until 1991 when the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF)—a coalition of rebel groups led by the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF)—overthrew the Derg government and installed a transitional government in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. The Derg government had been weakened by their loss of support due to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe.

During the civil war, the groups fighting the Derg government had a common enemy, so the TPLF allied itself with the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF). In 1991 as part of the United Nations-facilitated transition of power to the transitional government, it was agreed that the EPLF should set up an autonomous transitional government in Eritrea and that a referendum would be held in Eritrea to find out if Eritreans wanted to secede from Ethiopia. The referendum was held and the vote was overwhelmingly in favour of independence. In April 1993 independence was achieved and the new state joined the United Nations.

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Wikipedia