The Eritrean War of Independence was an independence struggle waged by the Eritrean Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) and the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) against the monarchist and communist Ethiopian governments from 1961 to 1991. The brutal conflict left 10% of Eritrea's population dead, including 60,000-90,000 soldiers and civilians, plus 400,000 more Eritreans made refugees; 75,000 Ethiopian and 5,000 Cuban troops were killed.
Background[]
Following World War II, Italian Eritrea was freed of colonial rule, and the Ethiopian Empire claimed Eritrea as its own territory in 1947. The predominantly Christian regions of Eritrea were mostly in favor of union with Ethiopia, while the Muslim regions supported an independent Eritrean state. In 1950, the United Nations decided to federate Eritrea within Ethiopia as a compromise, forming a federation in 1952. However, Eritrea's declining autonomy and growing discontent with Ethiopian rule led to the formation of the Eritrean Liberation Front in 1961. Ethiopia retaliated by dissolving the federation and annexing Eritrea a year later, leading to the struggle escalating.
In 1974, the communist Derg regime rose to power after ousting Emperor Haile Selassie I from power, and the Eritrean independence struggle was soon subsumed into the Ethiopian Civil War and the Cold War as the United States began to provide military aid to the rebels and the Eastern Bloc began to provide aid to the Ethiopian regime. In 1977, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front - backed by pro-Chinese Eastern Bloc nations - expelled the ELF from Eritrea and exploited the Ogaden War to wage a war of attrition against the Soviet-backed government of Ethiopia in alliance with Somalia. At the end of the 1980s, the USSR ended its support for the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the Workers' Party of Ethiopia, and Eritrean separatists and Ethiopian opposition groups soon overwhelmed the PDRE government. The US government facilitated peace talks in Washington DC, resulting in a May 1991 peace agreement. In April 1993, 99.83% of Eritreans voted in favor of independence from Ethiopia, and, on 28 May, Eritrea was granted UN membership.