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Sub Saharan Africa
Eritrea |
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Country information
HISTORY
Eritrea came into existence as an Italian colony in 1890. Italy used Eritrea as a jumping off point for its conquest of Ethiopia in 1936. In 1941 British-led forces drove out the Italians and Eritrea was placed under British Military Administration. This lasted until 1950 when the UN General Assembly agreed that Eritrea should be federated with Ethiopia under the sovereignty of the Ethiopian Crown. The federation was abolished in 1962 and Eritrea was absorbed into Ethiopia.
The first Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) formed in 1961. A second, the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF), headed by Isaias Afewerki, developed in the 1970s, boosted by the revolution in Ethiopia. Both were committed to independence for Eritrea. In the early 1980s the EPLF defeated the ELF and drove it into Sudan, where it fragmented. The EPLF went on to form a strategic alliance with an insurgent group in Northern Ethiopia, the Tigrayan Peoples’ Liberation Front (TPLF). They waged a long and eventually successful guerrilla war against the Mengistu government. In May 1991, the EPLF took control of Eritrea as their TPLF allies (now the EPRDF) entered Addis Ababa. A UN supervised referendum was held in April 1993 in which over 99% voted in favour of independence, on a turnout of over 90%. Ethiopia recognised Eritrea on 2 May 1993. The UK recognised Eritrea on 14 May 1993.
