Special edition: Ethiopia's new famine menace

Media reports from famine-stricken Ethiopia in the run-up to Christmas 1984 were the catalyst for Band Aid and then Live Aid – global events that raised awareness of the country’s devastating civil war. The war, between the government of Colonel Mengistu Hailemariam and Ethio-Eritrean rebels, raged for almost two decades between 1974 and 1991. Eritrea became independent in 1993.

In recent weeks, the fragile security of the region has been rocked once again – this time by conflict between the central government of Ethiopia and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which led the movement that ousted Mengistu in 1991 and went on to dominate Ethiopian politics for almost three decades. The Conversation has commissioned academic experts to explain the situation destabilizing the region.

Current prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, has been trying to reorganise Ethiopian politics and governance. Asafa Jalata argues that Abiy’s reform agenda has been designed to destroy Tigrayan power, while Yonatan T. Fessha asserts that conflict could have been avoided if the Tigray state government had been prepared to engage in intergovernmental dialogue.

For Yohannes Gedamu, Abiy has been mending Ethiopia’s fabric, including the creation of an inclusive political environment, but his efforts have been stymied by inter-ethnic clashes and internal displacement of citizens.

There are also fears that hostilities could spill over into Eritrea. Tigray and central Eritrea occupy the central massif of the Horn of Africa. The Tigrinya-speakers are the predominant ethnic group in both Tigray and the adjacent Eritrean highlands. Their histories are inextricably intertwined. As Richard Reid explains, conflict in Tigray is unavoidably a matter of intense interest to the Eritrean leadership.