The State of Eritrea

Eritrea, a former province of Ethiopia, voted for its own independence in 1993 after 30 years of civil war, becoming the first nation ever to split off successfully from an independent African country. It borders on the Red Sea in the east, Sudan in the west and north, and Ethiopia in the south. It is a mountainous country; its highest point, at 2591 m, is located south of the capital Asmara. Because it is located in the easternmost part of the Sahel, the country experiences periodic drought.

About half of Eritrea's predominantly mainly highlander Tigre population are Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, and about half (mainly lowlanders) are Muslims. The dominant language is Tigrinya, a Semitic language related to Amharic (as spoken in Ethiopia) and written in Amharic script. Other major languages include Afar, Beni Amer and Arabic. Most highlanders are farmers, growing sorghum, cotton, teff (a local grain), and citrus fruits, while many lowlanders continue to be nomadic herders of camels and goats. Salt from the Danakil depression is a major export. The government is seeking foreign aid and private investment to rebuild the devastated infrastructure after the civil war and to develop tourism, fishing, and other industries.

What is now Eritrea was part of the Aksum (Axum) empire established in the 1st century AD. The highlanders were converted to Christianity in the 4th century AD, and Islam spread in the lowlands beginning in the 7th century. Over the centuries Eritrea's strategic location on trade routes between the Nile River valley, the Red Sea, and central Ethiopia made it the object of numerous invasions by external powers seeking to control trade along the coast and in the interior - including the Ottoman Turks in the 16th century and Egypt in the 19th century. Eritrea was an Italian colony from 1890 to 1941: a province of Italian East Africa (Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Italian Somaliland) from 1936 until Italy's defeat in the Second World War. From 1941 to 1952, when the United Nations agreed to federate Eritrea with Ethiopia under an arrangement in which Eritrea retained control over local affairs, Eritrea was administered by Britain.

In 1962, however, Ethiopia forcibly annexed Eritrea, and the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) began an armed secessionist struggle in the western lowlands. After the overthrow of Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie in 1974 the independence movement gathered momentum under the leadership of the highlander-dominated Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF). As many as 100,000 Eritreans died during the long struggle while another 750,000 fled. In May 1991 the Ethiopian government led by Mengistu Haile Mariam collapsed, and the EPLF assumed de facto control of Eritrea. The new Ethiopian rebel coalition government agreed to allow an Eritrean referendum on independence in exchange for guaranteed Ethiopian access to the port of Mitsiwa (Massawa) on the Red Sea. When the UN-supervised referendum was held in April 1993, more than 99% of Eritrean voters chose independence, which was formally declared on May 24, 1993 with Issayas Afewerki, the head of the EPLF and the provisional government established in 1991, elected as the first president. Following Eritrea's independence, Eritrea and Ethiopia disagreed about the exact demarcation of their borders, and in May 1998 border clashes broke out that escalated into full warfare in which 80 000 people were killed. The war ended in a stalemate, and a formal peace agreement was signed in December 2000.

	Adi Ugri	Asmara	In Asmara	Main street
	Spice market	Rock salt	Market area	Market
	Main mosque	View to basilica	Asmara view	West of Asmara

Enter your search termsSubmit search form   Web WorldPics

Click on the map to select a continent...