Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1991 Mengistu Haile Mariam fled Ethiopia as rebel forces advanced on Addis Ababa, bringing the 17-year Ethiopian Civil War to an end.
Sources: BBC News ; Human Rights Watch
Politics
Ceiling of Debre Birhan Selassie church, Gondar, Ethiopia. Photo: Rod Waddington, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence · Source
On this day: May 21 in African history
Real events, births and milestones from Africa and the diaspora.
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1991 The passenger ferry MV Bukoba capsized and sank on Lake Victoria in Tanzania, killing close to a thousand people in one of Africa's worst maritime disasters.
Sources: The Citizen (Tanzania) ; NBC News (Associated Press) ; Features Africa Network (1996 news bulletin, distributed by Africa Online)
HistorySeven Trappist monks abducted from their monastery at Tibhirine, Algeria were killed amid the country's civil war.
Sources: La Croix ; The New York Times ; Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists)
HistoryA powerful earthquake struck Boumerdes in northern Algeria, killing more than 2,200 people.
Sources: Journal of Seismology (Springer) ; Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) ; Geophysical Research Letters (AGU), Bounif et al. 2004; open copy at IRD
History
Nightscream, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons Binyavanga Wainaina, the Kenyan writer celebrated for his memoir 'One Day I Will Write About This Place', died.
Sources: The Guardian ; Al Jazeera ; Los Angeles Times (Associated Press)
Death
Photograph by E. E. Caney, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1884 The Boers proclaimed the sixteen-year-old Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo king of the Zulu.
Sources: Internet Archive ; Jonathan Ball Publishers
Politics