Eritrea vs. Ethiopia: The Two Wars People Often Confuse

Eritrea and Ethiopia fought two fundamentally different wars within less than four decades. The first, the 1961–1991 Eritrean independence struggle, was a prolonged war over whether Eritrea should be part of Ethiopia at all. It ended with the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) taking control of Eritrea in 1991 and an internationally supervised referendum in 1993 in which Eritreans overwhelmingly voted for independence. The second, the 1998–2000 Eritrea-Ethiopia War, happened after Eritrea was already a sovereign state. It was an interstate war between two internationally recognized countries, centered initially on disputed territory around Badme and later fought across several fronts.

That distinction explains why the two conflicts are so often misunderstood. The first war was fundamentally about self-determination and sovereignty; the second was about the border and relations between two sovereign states. Badme became the symbol of the second war, but the conflict was not simply a fight over one village. It involved disputed boundaries, economic tensions, military mobilization, mass displacement and eventually conventional warfare on several fronts. The December 2000 Algiers Agreement ended the fighting and created a binding boundary process, but implementation of the settlement became the source of a prolonged “no war, no peace” period that lasted until the 2018 Ethiopia-Eritrea rapprochement.

The first war: Eritrea’s struggle for independence

The roots of the first conflict reach back well before 1961.

Eritrea had been an Italian colony before coming under British administration after the Second World War. In 1952, the United Nations established a federation between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

The arrangement was supposed to give Eritrea substantial internal autonomy while placing foreign affairs and defense under the Ethiopian crown.

The federation did not last.

Ethiopian authorities progressively dismantled Eritrea’s autonomous institutions, and in 1962 the Ethiopian government formally dissolved the federation and annexed Eritrea as a province. The UN’s historical account describes the subsequent conflict as one of Africa’s longest struggles for independence.

That is the background to 1961.

The armed struggle began in September 1961, initially under the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF). The EPLF later emerged as the dominant Eritrean liberation movement.

The war lasted approximately three decades.

It was not a conventional interstate conflict because Eritrea was not an independent state fighting another independent state. Eritrean insurgents were fighting successive Ethiopian governments for control of Eritrean territory and, ultimately, independence.

Why 1991 was the real military turning point

The first war ended militarily in 1991.

The EPLF captured Asmara in May of that year, while the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), an alliance that included the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, overthrew the Derg government in Addis Ababa. The new Ethiopian authorities accepted the principle that Eritreans should determine their political future through a referendum.

This produced an unusual transition.

Eritrea was effectively independent after the EPLF’s military victory, but the final legal and international process was deliberately postponed.

A UN-supervised referendum was held in April 1993.

The result was overwhelmingly in favor of independence, and Eritrea subsequently became a UN member state.

That matters enormously when discussing the later war.

By 1998, Ethiopia was not fighting an Eritrean independence movement. It was fighting the government of an independent Eritrea.

The two wars at a glance

The distinction is more than historical terminology.

It changes how almost every subsequent event should be interpreted.

What changed after independence?

For the first few years after 1993, Ethiopia and Eritrea were not natural enemies.

The governments in Asmara and Addis Ababa had emerged from allied liberation struggles against the Derg.

The TPLF, which became the dominant component of Ethiopia’s new EPRDF government, had fought alongside the EPLF.

The new countries also remained economically interconnected.

Ethiopia was now landlocked, while Eritrea possessed the Red Sea ports of Assab and Massawa. Ethiopian trade continued to use Eritrean ports during the early post-independence period.

But political and economic relations deteriorated.

Disagreements emerged over currency, trade arrangements and the precise location of the border.

Those disputes were particularly difficult because the international frontier had not previously functioned as a conventional state border. For decades, the boundary had largely been an internal administrative line within Ethiopia.

Once Eritrea became independent, old administrative boundaries suddenly became an international frontier.

That transformed local disputes into questions of sovereignty.

Why Badme mattered

Badme was a small border area in western Eritrea near the Ethiopian frontier.

Its importance was not proportional to its size.

After Eritrean independence, both governments claimed sovereignty over Badme and other areas, including the Tsorona-Zalambessa and Bure sectors. Human Rights Watch’s reconstruction of the conflict describes the boundary problem as a product partly of the way colonial borders had become internal administrative boundaries during Ethiopian rule.

This is one reason the statement “Ethiopia and Eritrea went to war over Badme” is technically inadequate.

Badme was the immediate flashpoint.

It was not the entire explanation.

By 1997–98, the two governments were already experiencing wider tensions over economic policy, currency and border administration. Human Rights Watch reports that Eritrea introduced its own currency in 1997, while disputes over trade and the border were intensifying.

The unresolved frontier provided the geographic arena in which those political and economic tensions became military.

How the second war began

In May 1998, fighting broke out around Badme.

The Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission later found that Eritrea’s May 12, 1998 attack on Badme and nearby areas constituted the initial use of armed force that violated the prohibition on force. Eritrea argued that earlier incidents involving Ethiopian or Tigrayan forces had prompted its action, but the Commission concluded that those incidents did not justify the scale of Eritrea’s attack.

That legal finding is important because later political narratives sometimes describe the war simply as an accidental escalation of local border clashes.

The international arbitration record is more specific.

The war began with an Eritrean military attack in the Badme area, after which the conflict escalated dramatically.

But identifying the initial use of force does not mean that every subsequent act by Ethiopia or Eritrea was lawful or unlawful as a single category. The conduct of the war involved separate questions of international humanitarian law, territorial control, treatment of civilians and prisoners, and the use of force.

From border clash to mass war

The second war quickly became much larger than the original dispute.

Both governments mobilized large numbers of troops.

After the first major fighting in May and June 1998, there was a period of relative calm. Both sides used the pause to recruit, train and rearm.

Human Rights Watch reported that approximately half a million recruits and conscripts were trained during one phase of the buildup, while both countries purchased substantial quantities of military equipment.

This is where the second war differs sharply from the first.

The independence struggle had been a long insurgency against a much larger state.

The 1998–2000 conflict became a large-scale conventional war between two governments with organized armies, artillery, armor and air power.

The armies fought along several fronts.

The main disputed sectors included:

• Badme in the west
• Tsorona-Zalambessa in the central sector
• Bure toward the east

Human Rights Watch describes successive cycles of fighting in these areas, with periods of intense conventional combat separated by lulls in which both sides rebuilt their forces.

The return to Badme

The first phase of the war did not produce a permanent settlement.

When major fighting resumed in February 1999, Ethiopian forces broke through Eritrean defensive positions and retook the Badme area.

That was a major military and political setback for Eritrea.

But the war did not end there.

Eritrean forces subsequently repelled an Ethiopian offensive around Tsorona, demonstrating that control of Badme did not determine the entire military balance.

This cycle is important because it shows why Badme became symbolic.

The area was the place where the war began, but the conflict had expanded into a broader struggle over the military balance and the disputed frontier.

The decisive Ethiopian offensive of 2000

The third major phase came in May 2000.

Ethiopian forces launched a major offensive and penetrated deeply into Eritrean territory.

The pressure forced Eritrean forces to withdraw from the disputed border areas and redeploy inside territory that Eritrea considered uncontested.

The fighting was followed by a June 2000 cessation of hostilities and then the December 2000 Algiers Agreement.

The military outcome therefore differed from the first war.

In 1991, Eritrean forces achieved a decisive victory over the Ethiopian government in Eritrea.

In 2000, Eritrea did not defeat Ethiopia.

The war ended after major Ethiopian military advances and a negotiated settlement.

The human cost was enormous

The second war is sometimes remembered primarily as a border dispute.

That description understates its consequences.

Human Rights Watch estimated that the 1998–2000 war resulted in around 100,000 deaths, although casualty estimates vary and precise figures remain difficult to establish. Hundreds of thousands were internally displaced, while more than a million people became refugees or otherwise displaced during the conflict.

The war also produced mass expulsions.

Ethiopia expelled an estimated 75,000 people of Eritrean origin, according to Human Rights Watch. Eritrea forcibly expelled or participated in the repatriation of an estimated 70,000 Ethiopians.

These figures should not be treated as a precise census of every displaced person. They represent documented estimates from a human-rights investigation.

But they illustrate the scale of the social rupture.

People who had lived across the two territories for years suddenly became associated with an enemy state because of their ancestry or nationality.

Families were separated.

Businesses and property were lost.

Communities that had long crossed the border for work and trade were divided by an international frontier that had become militarized.

Mass mobilization changed both societies

The second war also had consequences that lasted far beyond the battlefield.

Eritrea’s post-independence state had already developed a strong emphasis on national mobilization.

The border war reinforced that security model.

Human Rights Watch has documented how Eritrea’s national-service system became effectively indefinite following the 1998–2000 war, despite legal provisions limiting normal service to 18 months.

This is one of the most important long-term consequences of the second war.

The conflict did not simply redraw a disputed border.

It helped shape the political and security structures of the Eritrean state for decades afterward.

The war also imposed enormous costs on Ethiopia, including military casualties, displacement and economic disruption.

For both countries, the conflict consumed resources that could otherwise have supported reconstruction after decades of war.

The Algiers Agreement

The December 12, 2000 Algiers Agreement formally ended the conflict.

Its significance went well beyond declaring a ceasefire.

The agreement established an independent Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission to delimit and demarcate the border according to relevant colonial treaties and international law.

It also established a Claims Commission to adjudicate claims for loss, damage and injury arising from the conflict.

The United Nations subsequently established the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea, or UNMEE, to monitor the ceasefire and support the implementation of the settlement.

The Boundary Commission issued its final and binding delimitation decision in April 2002. It later dissolved in 2007 after the demarcation process became blocked.

And here the second war produced its most enduring paradox.

The fighting had ended, but the border dispute had not produced a mutually accepted peace on the ground.

Why Badme became the symbol of the unresolved peace

The Boundary Commission’s decision placed Badme on the Eritrean side of the international boundary.

But Ethiopia did not immediately implement the ruling in the manner Eritrea demanded.

Human Rights Watch later described the resulting relationship as a “no war, no peace” stalemate and noted that Badme remained under Ethiopian control despite the boundary ruling.

For Eritrea, this was evidence that the central promise of the Algiers settlement had not been fulfilled.

For Ethiopia, the issue was more complicated than simply refusing a border map. Local populations, administrative realities and the political consequences of transferring territory all complicated implementation.

The result was a frozen conflict.

No full-scale war.

No genuine normalization.

A heavily militarized border.

And two governments that continued to regard each other as major security threats.

The Claims Commission and the question of responsibility

The Algiers framework also produced a separate legal process over responsibility for wartime conduct.

The Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission examined claims involving the use of force, treatment of civilians, prisoners of war and property.

Its findings did not reduce the war to a single villain.

The Commission’s proceedings addressed conduct by both governments and produced awards concerning violations and damages. Human Rights Watch later summarized the Claims Commission’s findings as including violations by both sides involving civilians and prisoners.

This is important because the question “Who started the war?” and the question “Who committed violations during the war?” are not the same question.

The first concerns the legality of initiating force.

The second concerns conduct during the conflict.

A government can be found responsible for initiating unlawful force without every action taken by its opponent becoming lawful.

Conversely, evidence of abuses by both sides does not erase the legal finding concerning the initial attack.

Keeping those questions separate makes the history considerably clearer.

The two wars produced two different political legacies

The first war created Eritrea.

The second war reshaped the relationship between Eritrea and Ethiopia after Eritrea already existed.

That difference is fundamental.

The independence struggle produced:

• Eritrean statehood
• The end of Ethiopian rule over Eritrea
• The EPLF’s transformation into the governing political movement
• Ethiopia becoming landlocked
• A new international border

The 1998–2000 war produced:

• A heavily militarized Ethiopia-Eritrea frontier
• Mass displacement and expulsions
• Major military and economic losses
• The Algiers Agreement
• The Boundary Commission process
• The prolonged “no war, no peace” period
• A major transformation of Eritrea’s security state

The two conflicts therefore belong to different historical categories even though they involved many of the same people and organizations.

Why people keep merging the wars together

There are several reasons.

The same countries fought in both

At the simplest level, the names are identical.

Eritrea and Ethiopia fought from 1961 to 1991.

Eritrea and Ethiopia fought again from 1998 to 2000.

It is easy to describe both simply as “the Eritrea-Ethiopia war.”

But that wording hides the most important difference: Eritrea’s legal and political status changed between them.

Some of the same leaders were involved

Isaias Afwerki and the EPLF were central to the independence struggle.

After independence, Isaias became the leader of Eritrea.

On the Ethiopian side, political figures and military networks that had fought alongside the EPLF against the Derg became part of the post-1991 Ethiopian government.

That continuity can make the second war appear like a continuation of the first.

It was not.

The TPLF connection makes the history even more confusing

The TPLF and EPLF were allies against the Derg.

After 1991, the TPLF became the dominant force within Ethiopia’s EPRDF government.

Then Eritrea and Ethiopia fought each other.

Two decades later, Eritrea and Ethiopia would again fight together against the TPLF during the 2020–22 Tigray War.

The alliances therefore changed repeatedly.

Understanding the 1998 war without understanding the 1991 political transition is difficult.

Understanding the later Tigray War without understanding the 1998 war is even harder.

The unresolved aftermath became part of Eritrea’s security system

The failure to normalize relations after 2000 had consequences inside Eritrea.

The government continued to treat Ethiopia as a major security threat.

The border remained militarized.

National service became effectively open-ended.

Political space narrowed further.

Human Rights Watch has documented the relationship between the border war and Eritrea’s indefinite conscription system, noting that compulsory service has continued far beyond its statutory duration.

That does not mean every feature of Eritrean domestic policy can be explained by the 1998 war.

But the conflict became a central justification for maintaining a permanent national-security posture.

This is one reason the aftermath matters as much as the battlefield history.

The 2018 peace did not erase the second war

The deadlock finally began to change in 2018, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed accepted the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission decision and moved toward normalization with Isaias Afwerki.

Diplomatic relations were restored.

The border reopened.

Transport and communications links resumed.

The old “no war, no peace” relationship appeared to be ending.

But the history of 1998–2000 did not disappear.

The unresolved relationship between Eritrea and the TPLF remained important.

Ethiopia’s internal political transformation created new tensions.

And the Tigray War of 2020–22 brought Eritrean forces back into northern Ethiopia.

The former battlefield enemies of 1998 were now temporarily fighting alongside each other against the TPLF.

That extraordinary reversal is one reason the earlier war remains essential to understanding the region.

What Badme still represents

Badme is geographically small.

Historically, it is enormous.

It represents the moment when a newly independent Eritrea and the government of Ethiopia stopped behaving like former allies and began behaving like conventional states defending competing territorial claims.

The village also became a test of whether a legal boundary decision could overcome political realities on the ground.

The Boundary Commission’s decision did not automatically produce implementation.

That gap between legal settlement and political implementation became the central problem of the postwar period.

It is a recurring problem in international conflicts: an arbitration award can establish what the boundary should be, but governments and communities still have to make the settlement workable.

Why the distinction matters today

The difference between the two wars remains relevant to current disputes over Eritrea and Ethiopia.

When Ethiopia discusses Red Sea access, for example, the historical context is not simply that Ethiopia “lost its coastline.”

Ethiopia became landlocked as a consequence of Eritrea’s independence after the first war.

When Eritrea treats its territorial sovereignty as a core security issue, its position is shaped partly by the history of Ethiopian rule and the long independence struggle.

When Badme is mentioned, the relevant conflict is the 1998–2000 interstate war, not the independence struggle.

And when Eritrean military involvement in Tigray is discussed, the relevant background includes the deep hostility that emerged between the Eritrean government and the TPLF during the second war.

These are interconnected histories, but they are not the same conflict.

The most important distinction

The cleanest way to remember the history is simple.

1961–1991 was a war over Eritrea’s political status.

1998–2000 was a war between Eritrea and Ethiopia after Eritrea had already become independent.

The first ended with Eritrean military victory and an internationally supervised independence process.

The second ended with an internationally negotiated peace agreement, a boundary arbitration process and a territorial dispute that remained politically unresolved for years.

That difference also explains why the second war was so psychologically and politically traumatic.

Eritreans had fought for three decades to establish a sovereign state.

Only five years after formal independence, that state was fighting another major war with the country from which it had separated.

The conflict demonstrated that winning independence does not automatically settle the security relationship created by independence.

The first war answered the question, “Who governs Eritrea?”

The second asked, “Where exactly is the border between two sovereign states, and can they live with the answer?”

The international community helped answer the second question legally through the Algiers process and the Boundary Commission. But implementation proved much harder than arbitration. The resulting stalemate shaped Eritrean militarization, Ethiopian security policy and the politics of the Horn of Africa for almost two decades.

That is why the two wars should never be treated as one continuous conflict. The 1961–1991 struggle created the Eritrean state; the 1998–2000 war exposed how difficult it would be for that new state and Ethiopia to define a stable relationship after independence.