Timeline

The Horn of Africa, 1960 to today

Independence, union and dissolution; famine, war and recognition. Tap any date to open the full account of what happened and why it still matters.

1. 1960Somalia · Somaliland

   Independence and union

   British Somaliland is independent for five days, then unites with Italian Somaliland.

   Read what happened
2. 1963Kenya · Somalia

   Shifta war in the Northern Frontier District

   Somali-speaking Kenyans fight for union with Somalia; the insurgency is crushed by 1967.

   Read what happened
3. 1969Somalia

   Siad Barre seizes power

   A military coup installs scientific socialism and two decades of one-party rule.

   Read what happened
4. 1974Ethiopia

   The Derg overthrows Haile Selassie

   A Marxist military council ends the Ethiopian monarchy.

   Read what happened
5. 1977–78Somalia · Ethiopia

   The Ogaden war

   Somalia invades the Somali-inhabited Ogaden; Soviet and Cuban forces turn the war.

   Read what happened
6. 1984–85Ethiopia

   The great famine

   Drought, war and forced resettlement kill an estimated one million people.

   Read what happened
7. 1988Somaliland

   The bombing of Hargeisa

   Barre's forces destroy Hargeisa and Burco in a campaign against the Isaaq population.

   Read what happened
8. 1991Somalia · Somaliland · Ethiopia · Eritrea

   Three regimes fall

   Barre flees Mogadishu, Somaliland restores independence, and the EPRDF takes Addis Ababa.

   The Somali state collapsed into clan warfare. Elders meeting in Burco declared the restoration of Somaliland's independence on 18 May. In Ethiopia, the EPRDF installed ethnic federalism and accepted Eritrean self-determination.

   Hide detail
9. 1993Eritrea · Somalia

   Eritrean independence and Black Hawk Down

   Eritrea votes to secede; the US-UN intervention in Mogadishu unravels.

   Read what happened
10. 1998–2000Ethiopia · Eritrea

    The border war

    A dispute over Badme becomes trench warfare killing roughly 100,000 people.

    Read what happened
11. 2006Somalia · Ethiopia

    Islamic Courts and the Ethiopian intervention

    The Union of Islamic Courts takes Mogadishu; Ethiopian troops remove it.

    Read what happened
12. 2007Somalia

    AMISOM deploys

    The African Union mission begins a fifteen-year stabilisation effort.

    Read what happened
13. 2011Region · South Sudan

    Famine in Somalia; South Sudan independence

    A quarter of a million die in the Somali famine as South Sudan becomes a state.

    Read what happened
14. 2017Somaliland · Djibouti

    Berbera concession and the base race

    DP World takes on Berbera; China opens its first overseas base in Djibouti.

    Read what happened
15. 2018Ethiopia · Eritrea

    Abiy Ahmed and the peace deal

    Ethiopia's new prime minister ends the border standoff and wins the Nobel Prize.

    Read what happened
16. 2020–22Ethiopia

    The Tigray war

    Two years of war, blockade and famine end with the Pretoria agreement.

    Read what happened
17. 2023Sudan

    Army versus Rapid Support Forces

    Fighting erupts in Khartoum and becomes the world's largest displacement crisis.

    Read what happened
18. 2024Somaliland · Ethiopia · Somalia

    The sea-access memorandum

    Ethiopia and Somaliland sign a port deal; Somalia calls it an act of aggression.

    Read what happened
19. 2025–26Region

    Red Sea security and the recognition debate

    Shipping attacks, the ATMIS handover and renewed lobbying over Somaliland.

    Read what happened