Isaias Afwerki is an Eritrean politician and partisan who has been the president of Eritrea since shortly after he led the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) to victory in 24 May 1991, ending the 30-year-old war for independence from Ethiopia. In addition to being president, Isaias has been the chairman of Eritrea's sole legal political party, the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ). As Eritrea has never had a functioning constitution, no elections, no legislature and no published budget, Isaias has been the sole power in the country, controlling its judiciary and military. Hence, scholars and historians have long considered him to be a dictator, described his regime as totalitarian, by way of forced conscription; the United Nations and Amnesty International cited him for human rights violations. In 2022, Reporters Without Borders ranked Eritrea, under the government of Isaias, last out of 180 countries in its Press Freedom Index. In 2023 Eritrea ranked 174th out of 180 countries on the Press Freedom Index.
The Ogaden National Liberation Front is a social and political movement, founded in 1984 to campaign for the right to self-determination for Somalis in the Ogaden or Somali Region of Ethiopia. Its armed wing, lead by Ogaden national army waged an insurgency against the Ethiopian government from 1994 to 2018.
The Ethiopian occupation of Somalia, also called the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia or the Ethiopian intervention in the Somali Civil War, was an armed conflict in Somalia that lasted from 2006 to 2009. It began when military forces from Ethiopia, supported by the United States, invaded Somalia to depose the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and install the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). The conflict continued after the invasion when an anti-Ethiopian insurgency emerged and rapidly escalated. During 2007 and 2008, the insurgency recaptured the majority of territory lost by the ICU. At the start of 2009 Ethiopian troops withdrew from Somalia, but became re-involved several years later to counter the growing strength of Al-Shabaab.
The Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front is an Afar political party in Ethiopia, founded in 1993. It had been a member of the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF) coalition opposition party.
Erta Ale is a continuously active basaltic shield volcano in the Afar Region of northeastern Ethiopia, which is itself part of the wider Afar Triangle. The volcano is located in the Danakil Depression, an area on the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea that is below sea level. It is the most active of the volcanos in Ethiopia.
The Insurgency in Ogaden was an armed conflict that took place from 1994 to 2018. It was fought by separatists, the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), against the Ethiopian government. The war began in 1994, when the ONLF tried to separate Ethiopia's Somali Region from Ethiopia. It ended in a peace agreement as part of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's reforms.
Al-Qaeda has conducted operations and recruited members in Africa. It has included a number of bombing attacks in North Africa and supporting parties in civil wars in Eritrea and Somalia. From 1991 to 1996, Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders were based in Sudan.
The Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile was an armed conflict in the Sudanese states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement–North (SPLM-N), a northern affiliate of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in South Sudan. After some years of relative calm following the 2005 agreement which ended the second Sudanese civil war between the Sudanese government and SPLM rebels, fighting broke out again in the lead-up to South Sudan independence on 9 July 2011, starting in South Kordofan on 5 June and spreading to the neighboring Blue Nile state in September. SPLM-N, splitting from newly independent SPLM, took up arms against the inclusion of the two southern states in Sudan with no popular consultation and against the lack of democratic elections. The conflict is intertwined with the War in Darfur, since in November 2011 SPLM-N established a loose alliance with Darfuri rebels, called Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF).
The 2012 Afar region tourist attack was a shooting incident on the night of 17 January 2012 at Erta Ale volcano in the Afar Region of Ethiopia which killed 5 and injured 3. Four people were kidnapped in the attack.
The Red Sea Afar Democratic Organisation is a political organisation and armed insurgent group based in Ethiopia. The organisation is made up of mainly ethnic Afar people, and was founded in early 1995-1996 following a revolt by the Red Sea Afar people led by Ahmed Humed, after the UN-supervised Eritrean independence referendum was held in 1993. The primary goal of RSADO is to achieve autonomy for the region known as Dankalia, inhabited mainly by the Red Sea Afar.
The Eritrean–Ethiopian border conflict was a violent standoff and a proxy conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia lasting from 1998 to 2018. It consisted of a series of incidents along the then-disputed border; including the Eritrean–Ethiopian War of 1998–2000 and the subsequent Second Afar insurgency. It included multiple clashes with numerous casualties, including the Battle of Tsorona in 2016. Ethiopia stated in 2018 that it would cede Badme to Eritrea. This led to the Eritrea–Ethiopia summit on 9 July 2018, where an agreement was signed which demarcated the border and agreed a resumption of diplomatic relations.
The Saho People's Democratic Movement (SPDM) is a rebel group in Eritrea, fighting for the self-determination of the Saho people. They are allied with the Red Sea Afar Democratic Organisation (RSADO), whom they have done joint operations with. The organization was founded in 1984, during the Eritrean War of Independence, and played a significant role in the struggle against Ethiopian rule.
The Democratic Front for Eritrean Unity (DFEU) is a rebel group currently fighting the Eritrean government. They are allied with the Red Sea Afar Democratic Organisation (RSADO), with whom they have done joint operations.
The Oromo conflict is a protracted conflict between the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and the Ethiopian government. The Oromo Liberation Front formed to fight the Ethiopian Empire to liberate the Oromo people and establish an independent state of Oromia. The conflict began in 1973, when Oromo nationalists established the OLF and its armed wing, the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA). These groups formed in response to prejudice against the Oromo people during the Haile Selassie and Derg era, when their language was banned from public administration, courts, church and schools, and the stereotype of Oromo people as a hindrance to expanding Ethiopian national identity.
The Ethiopian Unity Patriots Front is a political party and militant rebel organization that waged an insurgency against the Ethiopian government from 1993 to 2012. Formed by ex-officials of the Derg regime, the EUPF was mostly active in Ethiopia's Gambela Region as well as eastern Sudan and South Sudan. The group agreed to a ceasefire with the Ethiopian government in 2012, and officially ended its insurgency in 2016. The EUPF remains active, however, and its armed wing has reportedly been involved in the South Sudanese Civil War, although to what extent is disputed.
The Tigray War was an armed conflict that lasted from 3 November 2020 to 3 November 2022. The war was primarily fought in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia between forces allied to the Ethiopian federal government and Eritrea on one side, and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) on the other.
This timeline of the Tigray War is part of a chronology of the military engagements of the Tigray War, a civil war that began in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia in early November 2020.
The Al-Fashaga conflict was a conflict between Sudan and Amhara militants from Ethiopia in the disputed border region of al-Fashaga. Since 2008, Ethiopia has dropped all claims to the al-Fashaga as long as Sudan allowed Ethiopian farmers and militants to stay in the area undisturbed. With the outbreak of the Tigray War, Sudanese forces were able to move into the region due to an agreement with Ethiopia just three days before. When Amhara militants left to assist the federal government in the war, Sudanese forces started to drive out Ethiopian farmers, effectively breaking the 2008 compromise. Ethiopia has also accused Sudan of killing Amhara farmers. The Government of Sudan claims the involvement of ENDF and Eritrean troops in the border dispute while the Ethiopian government denies this and regards the conflict as skirmishes between Sudanese forces and ethnic militias from the Amhara region. External media coverage has tended to conflate the Amhara militias with federal soldiers from the Ethiopian National Defence Forces (ENDF). There is some evidence to suggest that the ENDF has been involved in the conflict, although the capacity in which they are doing so is unclear. It is likely that they have had a peripheral role in the actual fighting.
The spillover of the Tigray War has had an impact on other countries in the surrounding region, particularly in Sudan. This spillover mainly consisted of Ethiopian refugees, more than 50,000 of which have crossed the Ethiopia–Sudan border. There have also been border clashes, mostly between the Sudanese Armed Forces and Ethiopian militias, but the Sudanese government has also claimed ambushes by the Ethiopian National Defense Force have taken place. Most of the fighting centered in Al-Fashaqa, a fertile plain claimed by both Sudan and Ethiopia.
The fall of the Derg, also known as Downfall of the Derg, was a military campaign that resulted in the defeat of the ruling military junta, called the Derg by the rebel coalition Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) on 28 May 1991 in Addis Ababa, ending the Ethiopian Civil War. The Derg took power after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie and the Solomonic dynasty, an imperial dynasty of Ethiopia that began in 1270. The Derg suffered from insurgency with different factions, and separatist rebel groups since their early rule, beginning with the Ethiopian Civil War. The 1983–1985 famine, the Red Terror, and resettlement and villagization made the Derg unpopular with the majority of Ethiopians tending to support insurgent groups like the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF).
