Holiday Calendar

National Day of Ethiopia

Next celebratedFriday, May 28, 2027

Ethiopians mark May 28 as Ginbot 20, the morning in 1991 when rebel forces stormed Addis Ababa and the Derg's military government fell. Mengistu Haile Mariam fled to Zimbabwe and was convicted of genocide in absentia.

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Last updated September 3, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEMay 28
OBSERVED INEthiopia
CATEGORYCulture
SUBCATEGORYRegional
ORIGIN

Event Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A regime fell at dawn, and the date stuck.

The day marks 28 May 1991, when Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front forces took Addis Ababa and the Derg military government ended. No proclamation or founding document designating the date as a national day has been located.

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INTRO

Which Ethiopian law makes this a national day

The National Day of Ethiopia is not in Ethiopia's holiday law.

Proclamation No. 1334/2024 sets out the national holidays to be marked across the country. It names four: the Ethiopian New Year, Adwa Victory Day, International Workers' Day and Ethiopian Patriots' Victory Day. May 28 is not among them.

The proclamation does use the phrase an Ethiopian National Day, once. It hands it to the Adwa victory of March 2.

Something plainly happened on May 28, and Ethiopians have marked it for decades. What nobody can produce is the instrument that made it a national day.

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ORIGINS

Day of Ethiopia history

INTRODUCTION

On 17 January 1975, four months after the arrest of Emperor Haile Selassie, Ethiopia's new military rulers sat down to decide which days the country would keep. Their Public Holidays and Rest Day Proclamation No. 16/1975 named fourteen public holidays and made Sunday the weekly rest day.

It stayed in force for forty-nine years. That is the odd fact sitting underneath May 28: the holiday law that governed Ethiopia for decades after the Derg fell was written by the Derg.

CHAPTER 01

The morning the capital changed hands

Mengistu Haile Mariam resigned and fled the country a week earlier. On 28 May 1991 the capital was taken at dawn.

Forces of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front poured fire from Soviet T-54 tanks, rocket launchers and machine guns into the presidential palace complex, where what was left of the national army had gathered. They held the complex after three hours. Scattered fighting ran on through the city for hours more.

It was not a bloodless handover. The Red Cross put the number of civilians injured in the capital in those days at up to 750.

CHAPTER 02

One line, changed in 1996

Five years later the new government reached for the Derg's holiday law and amended it. Proclamation No. 29/1996 was signed by President Negaso Gidada on 22 February. It deleted one sub-article and put Victory Day, May 5, in its place.

That was the entire instrument. Ginbot 20 was not added to the list.

CHAPTER 03

A new statute, and the same gap

Ethiopia's House of Peoples' Representatives finally replaced the Derg-era law. It enacted a new holidays proclamation on 11 June 2024. The text entered into force on publication in the Federal Negarit Gazette that August, and it repealed the old law except for its rest-days section.

The new statute is thorough. It sorts holidays into those that close government offices and those that do not, tells ministries who coordinates each celebration, and even directs Ethiopian embassies abroad on how to keep them.

May 28 appears in none of it. A date Ethiopians had been marking for three decades passed through a full rewrite of the holiday law and was still not written down.

TIMELINE

Timeline

The Derg writes the holiday law

Four months after the emperor's arrest, Ethiopia's military rulers issued Public Holidays and Rest Day Proclamation No. 16/1975, setting fourteen public holidays.

Addis Ababa changes hands

At dawn on May 28, EPRDF forces stormed the capital and took the presidential palace complex after three hours of fighting.

One sub-article is replaced

Proclamation No. 29/1996, signed by President Negaso Gidada on February 22, deleted a single line of the 1975 law and substituted Victory Day, May 5.

Thirty years, still not in law

An Ethiopian legal analysis recorded that the day had been marked every year for the past 30 years while remaining unknown to the statute.

A new statute, same omission

Proclamation No. 1334/2024 took effect on August 14, replacing the Derg-era law and leaving May 28 out of both categories of national holiday.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why National Day of Ethiopia Matters

WAGES

A 2021 analysis: not proclaimed by law, so no wages owed

An Ethiopian legal analysis published in 2021 found that because Ginbot 20 is not legally proclaimed as a public holiday, an employer is not obliged to pay wages when work is not performed on it. Whether a date sits inside the statute is not a symbolic question for the people who work through it.

DIPLOMACY

The United States still addresses the day by name

On 28 May 2024 the United States Secretary of State issued a statement headed Ethiopia National Day, extending best wishes as Ethiopia marked it. The same statement noted 120 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

CONTRAST

Eritrea made the opposite choice

Eritrean forces entered Asmara on 24 May 1991, four days before Addis Ababa fell. Eritrea's Ministry of Information calls Independence Day the most important public holiday in the country.

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about National Day of Ethiopia

Eleven pages, in two languages, and not one mention

The 2024 proclamation runs to eleven bilingual pages. Read in Amharic and in English, it never uses the words Ginbot or Derg at all, and the date May 28 appears nowhere in it.

Ethiopia has a second tier of national holiday

Alongside the days that close government offices, the law names memorial national holidays, which are commemorated without closing anything: Ethiopian Martyrs' Day and Ethiopian National Unity Day. May 28 is not in that list either.

Ethiopians know the date by another name

At home the day is Ginbot 20, the twentieth day of the month of Ginbot in the Ethiopian calendar. Ginbot 20, 1983 in that calendar was 28 May 1991.

One law, two year numbers, same page

The gazette prints the proclamation as 1334/2016 in Amharic and 1334/2024 in English, and dates the issue both 14 August 2024 and Nehase 8, 2016.

The man who fled was convicted anyway

Mengistu Haile Mariam was tried in absentia from Zimbabwe, found guilty of genocide in December 2006, given a life sentence, then sentenced to death in May 2008 after prosecutors appealed.

We will try not to interfere too much in the short time we have before the formation of the broad-based provisional government.
Meles ZenawiLeader of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, speaking in London the day his forces took Addis Ababa

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe National Day of Ethiopia

EDITOR'S PICK

Read the proclamation itself

Ethiopia's Ministry of Justice publishes the current holidays law in Amharic and English. The articles that name the national holidays take about a minute to read and settle the question themselves.

READ

Read what reporters filed at the time

Coverage written on 29 May 1991 describes the assault on the palace complex and the casualty figures the Red Cross gave that week. It is a sharper record than later summaries, which tend to describe the takeover as unopposed.

LOOK

Look up the date in the Ethiopian calendar

Ethiopia keeps its own calendar alongside the Gregorian one, and the day carries a different name in it. The 2024 proclamation prints both reckonings side by side on its front page.

COMPARE

Compare the day with Eritrea's May 24

Two capitals changed hands four days apart in May 1991, and the two countries treated the anniversaries very differently. Eritrea's Ministry of Information describes its date as the country's most important public holiday.

SEPARATE

Separate a national day from a public holiday

A date can carry national meaning and decades of observance without ever appearing in a holidays statute. May 28 is a clear worked example of that gap.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Day of Ethiopia?

1 / 8

How many holidays does Article 4 of Ethiopia's 2024 proclamation list as celebrated national holidays?

Answer

No. It is not among the national holidays listed in Ethiopia's public holidays proclamation, which is the law that determines which days close government offices.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

9sources
5primary records
8independently dated
Primary records
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Ministry of Justice2024-08-14
Proclamation to Determine Public Holidays and Celebration of Public Holidays, Proclamation No. 1334/2024
Ethiopia's holiday law in force, published in the Federal Negarit Gazette. It lists four celebrated national holidays, two memorial national holidays whose days keep offices open, and eight religious holidays, describes the Adwa victory as an Ethiopian National Day on March 2, and repeals the 1975 proclamation apart from its rest-days section.
View source
Federal Negarit Gazeta of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia1996-02-22
Proclamation No. 29/1996: A Proclamation to Amend the Public Holidays and Rest Day Proclamation
The scanned gazette page carrying the only post-1991 amendment to Ethiopia's holiday law before 2024. Its whole operative text deletes one sub-article of Proclamation No. 16/1975 and substitutes Victory Day, May 5. Signed by President Negaso Gidada.
View source
United States Department of State2024-05-28
Ethiopia National Day, press statement by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken
An official United States statement addressed to Ethiopia on its National Day, extending best wishes and marking 120 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
View source
The Baltimore Sun1991-05-29
Rebels pledge democracy in Ethiopia: U.S.-brokered talks end in agreement after fall of capital
Contemporaneous reporting by Gilbert A. Lewthwaite, filed the day after Addis Ababa fell. It describes the dawn assault on the presidential palace complex, the three hours it took to secure, the Red Cross figure of up to 750 civilians injured in the capital, and Meles Zenawi's remarks in London on the coming provisional government.
View source
Eritrea Ministry of Information2021-05-26
A Snapshot of the Official Celebration of the 30th Independence Anniversary
Eritrea's government describing its own Independence Day as the most important public holiday in the country, and dating it to 24 May 1991, when Eritrean People's Liberation Front forces reached Asmara.
View source
Additional coverage
International Labour Organization, NATLEX
Ethiopia, Public Holidays and Rest Day Proclamation No. 16/1975
The ILO's legislative record for the Derg-era holiday proclamation, giving its adoption date of 17 January 1975, its provision of fourteen public holidays with Sunday as the weekly rest day, and its amendment by Proclamation No. 29 of 1996.
View source
Ethiopian Legal Brief2021-07-08
Public holidays: Entitlement and Pay
An Ethiopian labour-law analysis written three years before the 2024 proclamation. It records that Ginbot 20 is not legally proclaimed as a public holiday and that employers are therefore not obliged to pay wages for it, and it describes what the 1996 amendment changed.
View source
Encyclopaedia Britannica2026-01-01
Mengistu Haile Mariam
Biography covering Mengistu's years as Ethiopian head of state, the arrest of Emperor Haile Selassie in September 1974, his flight to Zimbabwe in 1991, his conviction for genocide in absentia in December 2006 and the death sentence imposed in May 2008.
View source
Encyclopaedia Britannica2026-08-04
Ethiopia
Country survey recording Ethiopia's defeat of colonial Italy at the Battle of Adwa in 1896, the Italian invasion and occupation of 1935-36, the Allied liberation during the Second World War, and Ethiopia's standing as an independent signatory of the United Nations Charter.
View source
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