The Eritrean Civil Wars were two conflicts that were fought between competing organizations for the liberation of Eritrea

Eritrea

Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...

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The First Eritrean Civil War was fought from 1972 to 1974. The Eritrean Liberation Front

Eritrean Liberation Front

The Eritrean Liberation Front was the main independence movement in Eritrea which sought Eritrea's independence from Ethiopia during the 1960s and 1970s. In the very late 1950s unorganized political movement seeking independence was secretly active as small cells...

 (ELF) tried to suppress dissident groups that disliked the ELF leadership and wished to break away to form a new insurgency. Dissidents included Christians who resented an alleged Islamic bias in the ELF, inhabitants of the coast with regionalist concerns, and radical Marxists. The ELF failed to suppress the dissident groups, who ultimately united themselves into the Eritrean People's Liberation Front

Eritrean People's Liberation Front

The Eritrean People's Liberation Front was an armed organization that fought for the independence of Eritrea from Ethiopia. It emerged in 1970 as an intellectual left-wing group that split from the Eritrean Liberation Front .-Background:...

 (EPLF).

The Second Eritrean Civil War was fought from 1980 to 1981. The EPLF attacked the ELF when it appeared that the ELF were attempting to negotiate a peace deal with the enemy Soviet and Ethiopian governments. The ELF was defeated and pushed out of Eritrea. The remnants of the ELF withdrew to the Sudan.

Background

In 1952, Eritrea was federated with Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

 under great domestic controversy. Throughout the federation the autonomy of Eritrea was whittled away until it was no longer legal to teach in all of Eritrea's tongues. With increasing divisiveness being sown in the local press between Christians and Muslims the ELF was formed in Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

, Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 by a number of Eritrean Muslim intellectuals in 1960.

This organization was socialist in nature however, attracted mostly Muslim fighters in the early 1960s. By the late 1960s however, the frustration with the dissolution of the federation had pushed Eritrean Christians to join the fight for independence. Integration of Christian fighters under Muslim commanders did not go well and the regional emphasis of the ELF caused friction between the old guard and the new radical students.

This friction lead to the separation of parts of ELF from the ELF Command, sparking a military conflict. In the words of the ELF command, the purpose of the conflict was, "...to assert the continuation of the revolution through the liquidation of counter-revolution..."

First Civil War

The First Civil War was fought by the ELF against the nascent organizations of the Popular Liberation Forces that were formerly under the command of the ELF and the Obel group. Fighting began in February 1972 and spread through lowlands, particularly the Red Sea

Red Sea

The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...

coast. Eventually this conflict spread further into the highlands until in 1974 calls for the conflict to stop were finally heeded. These calls for peace came from local villagers at a time when the independence movement was close to victory over Ethiopia.

Second Civil War

The Second Civil War was executed by the EPLF against the ELF in a bid to protect the flanks of the Front under tremendous pressure from a resurgent Ethiopia. In 1980, the ELF had entered into secret negotiations with the Soviet Union to end the war. Furthermore, on defence of the Sahel stronghold of the EPLF, ELF units withdrew from the lines in August of the same year. This created tremendous friction between the fronts which eventually led to the resumption of conflict. By this point the ELF had been drained during the Ethiopian resurgence after Soviet assistance was leveraged, and were eventually defeated by the EPLF forces in 1981. They were pushed across the border into the Sudan.