1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia
A widespread famine affected Ethiopia from 1983 to 1985. The worst famine to hit the country in a century, it affected 7.75 million people and left approximately 300,000 to 1.2 million dead. 2.5 million people were internally displaced whereas 400,000 refugees left Ethiopia. Almost 200,000 children were orphaned.
Royal Air Force C-130 airdropping food during the famine in 1985
According to Oxfam (and also Human Rights Watch), Mengistu Haile Mariam helped to organize policies that multiplied the effects of the famine. He was sentenced to death in Ethiopia for crimes committed during his government (Derg). As of 2018[update], Mengistu lived in exile in Zimbabwe.
Famine relief being unloaded off a truck in 1985
Food distribution organized by Ethiopian Red Cross volunteers
The Derg, officially the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC), was the Marxist–Leninist military dictatorship that ruled Ethiopia, then including present-day Eritrea, from 1974 to 1987, when the military leadership or junta formally "civilianized" the administration but stayed in power until 1991.
Advocacy manifesto of the Derg, published in June 1978
One sketch in the Red Terror Martyrs' Museum showing military convoys of the Derg driving into the gorge
Tiglachin Monument commemorating the victory of the Derg over Somalia in the Ogaden War
An airlift supplying water truck during the famine in 1985
