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Ethiopia's Mass Internal Displacement of 2017-2019

2017–2019 · Sub-Saharan Africa

Displacement Mass Killing

Displaced

2.9 million

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre recorded about 2.9 million new internal displacements in Ethiopia in 2018, the highest figure of any country that year; the Norwegian Refugee Council reported 1.4 million in the first half of 2018 alone, of which around one million were in Gedeo and West Guji and about 200,000 along the Oromia-Somali boundary, while IOM's displacement tracking identified 970,000 displaced in Gedeo and West Guji by September 2018. Figures come from IOM Displacement Tracking Matrix rounds, NRC field reporting and IDMC's annual compilation, and are movement counts rather than distinct individuals.

Share of the population affected

4.8%

of the combined population of Ethiopia's Oromia, Somali and Southern Nations (SNNP) regions, where the displacement occurred, 2018

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What happened

Between 2017 and 2019 Ethiopia experienced the largest new internal displacement of any country in the world, driven by conflict along the boundary between the Oromia and Somali regions, in which regional special police forces were implicated and hundreds of thousands of Oromo and Somali residents were expelled in both directions, and by the outbreak of violence between Gedeo and Guji Oromo communities in April 2018, which displaced up to 970,000 people into Gedeo zone in a matter of weeks. Further displacement followed in Benishangul-Gumuz, in the Amhara-Tigray boundary areas and around Addis Ababa. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre recorded around 2.9 million new displacements in 2018 alone, and the Norwegian Refugee Council reported in September 2018 that Ethiopia had more newly displaced people in the first half of that year - 1.4 million - than any other country. From 2019 the federal government pursued a rapid returns programme; the Norwegian Refugee Council, Human Rights Watch and humanitarian agencies reported that returns were in places pressured or premature and that assistance was withdrawn from people who had not returned voluntarily, which the government denied. The displacement crisis preceded and partly shaped the later Tigray war, which is recorded separately.

Parties

Communal and regional conflict along the Oromia-Somali and Gedeo-West Guji boundaries drove the largest new internal displacement in the world in 2018

Disputed

Whether the 2019 returns were voluntary is disputed between the Ethiopian federal government and humanitarian organisations; displacement counts are movement figures and overstate distinct individuals.

The denominator

Central Statistical Agency projections from the 2007 census put Oromia at about 35.5 million, SNNPR at 19.2 million and the Somali region at 5.7 million for 2017-18, roughly 60.4 million of Ethiopia's then 105-109 million. Ethiopia has not held a census since 2007, so all regional figures are projections and the Somali region's in particular is contested.

IDMC counts new displacements rather than displaced people, so anyone displaced more than once during 2017-19 is counted more than once; a large share of those displaced from Gedeo and West Guji were also returned under government pressure within months, in returns the UN did not consider voluntary.

Where the baseline comes from

Gedeo-West Guji conflict — Wikipediaopen-edited
Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre — Ethiopiaofficial

On the death toll

No reliable death toll exists for the 2017-19 communal violence. Reported killings in the Oromia-Somali and Gedeo-West Guji conflicts run into the hundreds to low thousands in media and human rights reporting, but no systematic count was made and the displacement, not the killing, was the defining feature.

Documented forms of violence

Destruction of PropertyMass Killing

Human Rights Watch and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission documented the burning of homes and killings of civilians during the Oromia-Somali and Gedeo-West Guji violence.