One of the deadliest conflicts of the twenty-first century is probably one that you have never heard of. The Tigray War, which took the lives of anywhere from 100,000 to 600,000 Ethiopians—mostly civilians—from 2020 to 2022, was mostly overshadowed by the COVID-19 Pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which either started or reached their peak at the same time.
The Tigray War was only a single part of a broader conflict in Ethiopia. Ethnically-based militias have been fighting the forces of the central government for years, and there appear to be few signs of these conflicts coming to a close in the near future. Just this year, over 1,000 Ethiopians have died in violent clashes—last year, the total was over 10,000. To understand the roots of these conflicts, one would have to go back decades, or even centuries, and understand the motivations of the complex networks of ethnic and religious groups that constitute the East African country of over 100 million.
Solomon’s Kingdom: Ethiopia’s Imperial History
In some respects, Ethiopia is quite literally the oldest civilization on Earth: “Lucy,” one of the oldest hominid fossil specimens ever discovered, was found in Ethiopia, and modern humans are believed to have emerged in areas of East Africa, including modern-day Ethiopia, around 300,000 years ago.
In the more conventional sense, modern Ethiopian civilization is also quite old. There are records that are over 4,500 years old detailing interactions between Ancient Egypt and a kingdom known as Punt, which was likely located in parts of modern-day Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somalia. Punt was eventually followed by the Kingdom of D‘mt (the kingdom’s full name is unknown, as the ancient Ge’ez language did not write down vowels), which was in turn followed by the Kingdom of Aksum. In the fourth century AD, in an event which later Ethiopian Christians describe as among the most important in the nation’s history, the King of Aksum, Ezana, was converted to Christianity by the Byzantine monk Frumentius.
Christianity, specifically a variety of Orthodox Christianity that would come to be followed by the modern Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (“EOTC”), spread across what is now Eritrea and northern Ethiopia. Aksum gradually expanded, coming to encompass lands in modern-day Sudan and Yemen, before its growth was stalled by the rise of Islam. Arab leaders from abroad pillaged Aksumite cities, and local leaders in the areas surrounding the kingdom, particularly to the north, east, and west, began converting to Islam.
Aksum was succeeded by the Zagwe Dynasty in the tenth century, and was mostly confined to the northern Ethiopian Highlands. Zagwe rule was followed by the establishment of the Solomonic Dynasty around 300 years later, whose emperors claimed descent from the biblical king. The Solomonic emperors clashed with neighboring Muslim kingdoms for centuries, alternatingly conquering them and being pushed back by them. In the sixteenth century, contact with European nations increased, eventually culminating in a failed attempt by Jesuit missionaries to convert the kingdom from Orthodoxy to Catholicism.
The nineteenth century marked massive changes in the structure of both Ethiopian society and its relationship with the outside world. A series of emperors, particularly Menelik II, initiated a series of modernizing reforms and expanded the boundaries of the empire out of the northern and central highlands to encompass essentially all of the territory of modern-day Ethiopia. At the same time, pressure from European countries, which had by that point set their sights on swallowing up the entire African continent, began to increase. Italy and Ethiopia signed a treaty with each other in 1889, which the Italians interpreted as giving them control over Ethiopian affairs. Determined to assert its control, Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1895. A year later, however, Ethiopia emerged victorious, in what was one of the few victories African nations experienced against the tide of colonialism.
Forty years later, however, Italy invaded Ethiopia yet again. The kingdom was unable to push back Italian forces this time around, and for the next five years, Ethiopia was under the occupation of fascist Italy. A combination of British forces and Ethiopian rebels was eventually able to liberate the country, although British influence lingered in at least some of the country for over a decade afterwards. Before and after Italian occupation, Haile Selassie, who ruled Ethiopia as either Emperor or regent for almost 60 years, carried out a series of modernizing reforms that sought to develop the country and reduce the influence of the established nobility.
A Note on Religion and Ethnicity
Now that we have a broad overview of the history of Ethiopia, it is necessary to discuss the religious and ethnic composition of Ethiopia. Ethiopia is a highly religiously and ethnically diverse nation: no one religious or ethnic group makes up a majority. While coexistence has been possible, these divides have also, at times, led to significant conflicts in the country.
According to the most recent US government estimates, 44% of the Ethiopian population follows Orthodox Christianity, 31% follow Sunni Islam, 23% follow Protestant Christianity, and the rest follow traditional faiths, Catholicism, and a variety of other religions. Orthodoxy has historically been hegemonic in Ethiopia; with the exception of one Catholic king in the 17th century, every ruler of Ethiopia and its predecessor kingdoms from Ezana to Haile Selassie was Orthodox. Due to this singularity of religion, Orthodox Christians long enjoyed certain privileges over other religious groups, although a shift away from their dominance after the fall of the monarchy has led to some resentment. Geographically, Orthodoxy is predominant in the northern highlands, which have historically been the core territory in Ethiopia.
Like Orthodoxy, Islam has a long and complicated history in Ethiopia. While there have been periods of tolerance, Islam and Orthodox Christianity have historically clashed in the country, and Muslims often face forms of discrimination, especially in places where they are in the minority. Currently, Islam is mostly concentrated in eastern Ethiopia and parts of the south.
While a large proportion of Ethiopia’s population is now Protestant (mostly Pentecostal Protestants, known as Pent’es), this has not always been the case. Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism rapidly grew in membership in the late twentieth century, and continue to grow in the modern day. Like Muslims, Pentecostals face significant discrimination from the dominant Orthodox population, although the presence of prominent Protestant politicians, such as Hailemariam Desalegn and Abiy Ahmed, the previous two prime ministers of Ethiopia, have narrowed the gap somewhat. Protestantism is mostly concentrated in the south, but has a fairly wide distribution.
Ethnically, Ethiopia is even more diverse. The two largest ethnic groups are the Oromo and the Amhara, which make up 34.4% and 27.0% of the nation’s population, respectively. The Oromo mostly live in the central regions of Ethiopia, and are mostly split between Islam and Christianity. While the Oromo have ruled Ethiopia for parts of its history, they have faced significant persecution in the past century. The Amhara are mostly Orthodox, and mostly live in the northern Highlands. The vast majority of kings of the Solomonic Dynasty were Amhara, and members of the ethnic group dominated Ethiopian life until recently.
The two next-largest ethnic groups are Somalis and Tigrayans, which both make up around 4.5% of Ethiopia’s population. Somalis live in Ethiopia’s eastern edge, and are overwhelmingly Muslim. Conflicts between Ethiopia and Somalia over the Somali-majority region have been frequent and bloody. Tigrayans are overwhelmingly Orthodox and live in the country’s Tigray region in the far north. The Tigray region recently experienced significant violence, which will be elaborated upon later. Besides the four aforementioned ethnic groups, a large number of other ethnic groups live throughout the nation, especially in the south.
The Modern Conflict
Now that some necessary context on Ethiopian history and demographics has been given, we can move on to the course of modern conflicts in Ethiopia. Ethiopian society began to see a significant breakdown in the mid-twentieth century, as the reforms propagated by Haile Selassie had either stalled or attracted the ire of factions such as the nobility, ethnic minorities, and the military. Eventually, in 1974, a military group known as the Derg overthrew and later killed Haile Selassie and established a communist government.
Derg rule, characterized by massive social and economic reform, eventually turned brutal, with massive numbers of Ethiopians killed in political persecutions by the military government. A combination of environmental factors, governmental mismanagement, and active malice on the part of the Derg eventually led to a massive famine during the mid-1980s, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands to millions of people. At the same time, the nation experienced a brutal civil war, in which rebels representing various ethnic groups dissatisfied with Derg rule fought against the government. Hundreds of thousands died from direct violence alone during the war.
In 1991, the Derg regime collapsed, and the opposition coalition, which was mostly led by the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (which supported independence for Eritrea) and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (the “TPLF,” which supported either autonomy or independence for Tigrayans), took control of the country. Eritrea soon gained its independence, while the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (“EPRDF,” mostly dominated by the TPLF but including parties representing the Amhara, Oromo, and various southern peoples) began its rule over Ethiopia. TPLF leader Meles Zenawi became interim President and later Prime Minister.
During his two-decade-long rule over Ethiopia, Meles attempted to implement a system of ethnic federalism, in which each ethnic group living in the country would have its own rights within a larger nation. He also attempted an economic revitalization program that, though not perfect, made significant progress towards bringing Ethiopians out of poverty. At the same time, however, the end of the Derg did not mean the beginning of democracy, and ethnic tensions, while low overall, continued to simmer.
Meles died in 2012, and was succeeded by Hailemariam Desalegn, a member of the Wolayta ethnic group from Ethiopia’s south. During Hailemariam’s premiership, ethnic tensions in Oromia, a state mostly inhabited by the Oromo people, flared up as a result of a plan to expand the boundaries Amhara-plurality Addis Ababa into the region’s territory. Many Amhara, resentful of TPLF domination, began to protest as well. The government responded with lethal force, killing dozens of protestors.
Hailemariam, facing lingering unpopularity, resigned in 2018, and was succeeded by Abiy Ahmed, an Oromo Pentecostal convert who promised to shake up traditional political dynamics. Abiy dissolved the EPRDF and instead formed a party of his own, the Prosperity Party, which was intended to unify the ethnically-fractured national political scene. For his initiatives, Abiy won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. Peace in Ethiopia would be short-lived, however.
While the TPLF had once dominated post-Derg Ethiopia, it slowly fell out of favor as non-Tigray politicians came to dominate the political scene. The TPLF refused to join the Prosperity Party, and shortly after Abiy reached out to Eritrea to attempt a rapprochement, members of the party effectively broke away from the Ethiopian government. Attempts to resolve the standoff failed, and in November 2020, TPLF-controlled areas of Tigray and the Ethiopian government went to war, with Eritrea joining in on the side of Ethiopia soon after.
The tide of the war varied over time: at first, Ethiopian and Eritrean forces occupied large swathes of the Tigray region. A few months in, however, Tigrayan forces regained large swathes of territory, including Mekelle, the capital of the region. Eventually, Tigrayan forces began to push out of the region itself, going further and further into the Amhara region until they were not far from Addis Ababa itself, soon linking up with the Oromo Liberation Army, a rebel group dedicated to Oromo autonomy or independence. Panicked by the prospect of the capital falling, the Ethiopian army launched a major counteroffensive, eventually leading to a ceasefire and the disarming of the region in November of 2022.
The war was brutal: some estimates hold that 600,000 people died in just two years of fighting. Another five million were displaced from their homes. All sides in the conflict were responsible for countless crimes, including murder, sexual violence, and ethnic persecution; the Ethiopian government has so far taken few steps to prosecute anyone but low-level offenders.
In the three years since the war, tensions have flared up yet again. Just a few weeks ago, Abiy appointed a new provisional head of the Tigray region, as disputes within the Tigrayan government and between Ethiopia and Eritrea have led to fears of a new war breaking out. Tigray is not the only region experiencing tensions at the moment. For the past two years, an Amhara militia group known as Fano has been fighting against government forces, with its leaders claiming to have seized large swathes of the region. In Oromia, too, forces of the Oromo Liberation Army, which had previously sided with Tigrayan forces, have been launching increasingly frequent attacks on government forces. If the situation is not put under control soon, Ethiopia may see yet another civil war.
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