Recent History

1998 - A border dispute with Eritrea led to the Eritrean-Ethiopian War in which tens of thousands of people were killed. A peace agreement was signed in 2000. A fragile truce has held, but ongoing border disputes threaten peace.

2002-2004 - Famine hit Ethiopia again

2004 - The government began a drive to move more than two million people away from the arid highlands of the east in an attempt to provide a lasting solution to food shortages.

2005 - Meles Zenawi's EPRDF won bitterly contested elections, paving the way for his third five-year stint as prime minister. Around 36 people were killed and hundreds were arrested in the protests; 46 protesters died in further violence in November. Senior opposition figures and journalists were among those detained and charged with treason in the wake of the 2005 protests. Western donors cut direct aid in protest at the crackdown.

2006 - Ethiopia sent between 5,000 and 10,000 troops into Somalia to support forces of the weak transitional government and helped to oust the Islamists who had controlled southern Somalia for six months.

2006 - Exiled former ruler Mengistu Haile Mariam was sentenced - in absentia - to life in prison on genocide charges after a 12-year trial.  Mengistu has lived in exile in Zimbabwe since he was overthrown in 1991. Zimbabwe said it would not extradite him.

2008 - Ethiopia's Supreme Court sentenced Mengistu - in absentia - to death. This overturned the previous. The judge said he had passed the death sentence as Mengistu had tortured and executed thousands of innocent people, which amounted to genocide. Mengistu remains in Zimbabwe.

2009 - Ethiopians in Somalia were unable to break the power of the Islamists, who gradually began to win back lost territory. Ethiopia pulled its troops out of Somalia under an agreement between the transitional Somali government and moderate Islamists.