Casualties and impact of the Ethiopian Civil War

The land, the most important means of production, had been grabbed by the church (25%), the Emperor and his family (20%), the feudal lords (30%) and state (18%), leaving a mere 7% to the 23 million and odd Ethiopian peasants.

It has impact on agrarian reform and the process of deforestation widely aggravated than the previous Haile Selassie regime, especially between 1973 and 1980.

Soil erosion even more visible with both provinces experiencing topsoil losses of roughly 100 tons per hectare per year during this period.

Wollo was the most severely affected province, whereas the northern highlands regions, especially in Tigray were deadly damaged by the famine.

[6] The Red Terror was a political repression launched by the Derg in 1976 to suppress internal opposition from rival parties like Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP) and All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement (MEISON) involving brutal execution, mass arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances, and sexual assaults.

[8] According to Kifle Ketema, a witness imprisoned at Keftegna 15, said that guards attached newspapers to fellow prisoners' backs and set them on fire.

By early 1978, dead bodies of victims subsided and the Derg government opted to use covert operations for use of violence and distributed prisons in grassroot across Addis Ababa.

[12][13][14] Anti-government insurgency and the government response features the use of indiscriminate violence against civilians by the Ethiopian Army and Air Force.

[18] According to a report by the New York Times, the death toll was estimated at about 60,000, including 25,000 civilians and 6,000 Cuban soldiers supporting Ethiopia.

Military analysis in Washington voiced doubt about the fatalities of Cuban soldiers at large which had force of 20,000 men at its high point.