Global InformationOgaden War information
| Ogaden War | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Ethiopian Civil War, the Ethiopian–Somali conflict, and the Cold War | |||||||
 Cuban artillerymen prepare to fire at Somali forces in the Ogaden | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Ethiopia Cuba South Yemen[1]Supported by:  Soviet Union Israel[2][3] East Germany[4] North Korea[5] |
 Somalia WSLFSupported by:  Egypt[6] Saudi Arabia[7][8] Iraq[8][9] | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
|
Mengistu Haile Mariam Tesfaye Gebre Kidan Merid Negussie Addis Tedla Arnaldo Ochoa[7] Vasily Petrov[15] |
Siad Barre Ali Samatar Mohamed Farrah Aidid Abdullahi Ahmed Irro Abdullahi Yusuf Mohamed Ali | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
|
Beginning of war: 35,000–47,000 soldiers[16] 37 aircraft, 62 tanks, 100 armored vehicles[6] Later: 75,000 soldiers[17] 1,500 Soviet advisors 12,000–18,000 Cuban soldiers[18][19] 2,000 Yemeni soldiers[20] |
Beginning of war: 31,000[21]–39,000 soldiers[22] 40 aircraft, 250 tanks, 350 armored vehicles, and 600 artillery pieces[23] Later: 54,000–63,000 soldiers[22] | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
|
Ethiopia: 6,133 killed[24] 10,563 wounded[24] 1,922 captured[24] Equipment losses: 23 aircraft[24] 139 tanks[24] 108 APCs[24] 99 vehicles[24] Cuba: 160 killed[25] 250 wounded[26] 6 tanks[26] South Yemen: 90 killed 150 wounded[26] |
Somalia: 6,453 killed 2,409 wounded[24] 275 captured[24] Equipment losses: 28 aircraft[27] 11 helicopters[28] 200+ tanks[29] 30 APCs[24] 90 vehicles[24] WSLF: ~2,000 killed[26] | ||||||
|
25,000 civilians killed[25] 500,000 Somali inhabitants of Ethiopia displaced[30][31] | |||||||
The Ogaden War, or the Ethio-Somali War (Somali: Dagaalkii Xoraynta Soomaali Galbeed, Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ ሶማሊያ ጦርነት, romanized: ye’ītiyop’iya somalīya t’orineti), was a military conflict fought between Somalia and Ethiopia from July 1977 to March 1978 over the Ethiopian region of Ogaden. Somalia's invasion of the region, precursor to the wider war,[32] met with the Soviet Union's disapproval, leading the superpower to end its support of Somalia and support Ethiopia instead.
Ethiopia was saved from defeat and permanent loss of territory through a massive airlift of military supplies worth $1 billion, the arrival of more than 12,000 Cuban soldiers and airmen sent by Fidel Castro to win a second African victory (after his first success in Angola in 1975–76),[28] and 1,500 Soviet advisors, led by General Vasily Petrov. On 23 January 1978, Cuban armored brigades inflicted the worst losses the Somali forces had ever taken in a single action since the start of the war.[29]
The Cubans (equipped with 300 tanks, 156 artillery pieces and 46 combat aircraft)[25] prevailed at Harar, Dire Dawa and Jijiga, and began to push the Somalis systematically out of the Ogaden. By 23 March 1978, the Cuban backed Ethiopian army had recaptured more than two-thirds of the Ogaden, marking the official end of the war.[11] Almost a third of the regular SNA soldiers, three-eighths of the armored units and half of the Somali Air Force had been lost during the war. The war left Somalia with a disorganized and demoralized army as well as a heavy disapproval from its population. These conditions led to a revolt in the army which eventually spiraled into the ongoing Somali Civil War.[33]
- ^ "Ogaden Area recaptured by Ethiopian Forces with Soviet and Cuban Support -International Ramifications of Ethiopian-Somali Conflict – Incipient Soviet and Cuban Involvement in Ethiopian Warfare against Eritrean Secessionists -Political Assassinations inside Ethiopia". Keesing's Record of World Events (formerly Keesing's Contemporary Archives). 1 May 1978.
- ^ Lefebvre, Jeffrey Alan. Arms for the horn : U.S. Security Policy in Ethiopia and Somalia. University of Pitsburg Press. p. 188.
- ^ "Arms and Rumors From East, West Sweep Ethiopia". Washington Postt. Retrieved 9 September 2022.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
East-Germany-Ethiopiawas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "North Korea's Military Partners in the Horn". The Diplomat. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
- ^ a b Mekonnen, Teferi (2018). "The Nile issue and the Somali-Ethiopian wars (1960s–78)". Annales d'Éthiopie. 32: 271–291. doi:10.3406/ethio.2018.1657.
- ^ a b Tareke 2000, p. 656.
- ^ a b Fitzgerald, Nina J. (2002). Somalia; Issues, History, and Bibliography. Nova Publishers. p. 64. ISBN 9781590332658.
- ^ Malovany, Pesach (21 July 2017). Wars of Modern Babylon. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 9780813169453.
- ^ Ayele 2014, p. 106: "MOND classified documents reveal that the full-scale Somali invasion came on Tuesday, July 12, 1977. The date of the invasion was not, therefore, July 13 or July 23 as some authors have claimed."
- ^ a b Gebru Tareke (2000). "The Ethiopia-Somalia War of 1977 Revisited" (PDF). The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 33 (3): 635–667. doi:10.2307/3097438. JSTOR 3097438. S2CID 159829531. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 February 2020. Retrieved 29 October 2020.
- ^ Lapidoth, Ruth (1982). The Read Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. ISBN 9024725011.
- ^ Szajkowski, Bogdan (18 June 1981). Marxist Governments_ A World Survey_ Mozambique-Yugoslavia. p. 656. ISBN 9781349043323.
- ^ Gorman 1981, p. 208
- ^ Tareke 2009, pp. 204–5.
- ^ Tareke 2000, p. 638.
- ^ Halliday & Molyneux 1982, p. 14.
- ^ Gleijeses, Piero (2013). Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976–1991. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-1-4696-0968-3.
- ^ White, Matthew (2011). Atrocities: The 100 Deadliest Episodes in Human History. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-08330-9.
- ^ South Yemen's Revolutionary Strategy, 1970-1985. Routledge. 9 July 2019. ISBN 9781000312294.
- ^ Dixon, Jeffrey S.; Sarkees, Meredith Reid (22 October 2015). A Guide to Intra-state Wars. ISBN 9780872897755.
- ^ a b Tareke 2000, p. 640.
- ^ "Genesis of the civil war in Somalia".
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Tareke 2000, p. 665.
- ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference
Urribarreswas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b c d "ТОТАЛЬНАЯ СОЦИАЛИСТИЧЕСКАЯ ВОЙНА. НЕДОКУМЕНТАЛЬНЫЕ ЗАПИСКИ: Война между Эфиопией и Сомали 1977-78 гг. Page 2". Archived from the original on 2019-05-09. Retrieved 2009-05-27.
- ^ "ТОТАЛЬНАЯ СОЦИАЛИСТИЧЕСКАЯ ВОЙНА. НЕДОКУМЕНТАЛЬНЫЕ ЗАПИСКИ: Война между Эфиопией и Сомали 1977-78 гг". Archived from the original on 2019-05-09. Retrieved 2009-05-27.
- ^ a b Clodfelter 2017, p. 557.
- ^ a b Pollack, Kenneth Michael (2019). Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness. Oxford University Press. pp. 90–91.
- ^ http://gadaa.com/06142007002.pdf Archived 2016-12-26 at the Wayback Machine Evil Days: Thirty Years of War and Famine in Ethiopia
- ^ Evil days : thirty years of war and famine in Ethiopia. New York : Human Rights Watch. May 13, 1991. ISBN 9781564320384 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ Tareke 2009, p. 186.
- ^ "The Rise and Fall of Somalia". stratfor.com. Retrieved 8 December 2016.