Born Then
1888–1892

Life during the Great Ethiopian Famine

Be born in a place it hit, a few years before it began, and see what it did to five ordinary lives.

What it meant for ordinary people

Rinderpest, brought by infected cattle, killed most of the oxen and herds of the Horn of Africa. Without oxen fields could not be ploughed, and drought, locusts, cholera and typhus followed. Ethiopians remember it as the "Evil Days".

Deaths: perhaps a third of Ethiopia's population.

How hard it hits each person in the game (risk of death, of being conscripted, of leaving) comes from scholarly estimates.

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