1998 — Badme Ignites the Eritrean–Ethiopian War

On May 6, 1998, gunfire over the border village of Badme escalated when Eritrea seized the town, igniting a full-scale war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Two neighbors, recently bound by a shared struggle, suddenly faced each other across a frontier that colonial rule had left never properly demarcated on the ground.

Over half a million troops massed along the frontier. The death toll climbed toward 300,000, and more than a million people fled their homes, making it the deadliest conflict on Earth at the time. The fighting raged until the Algiers Agreement of 2000, leaving behind a lesson in how an unmarked line can consume two nations.