Eritrea is an independent nation in Eastern Africa. With the capital city of Asmara, Eritrea 2020 population is estimated at 3,546,432 according to countryaah. Eritrea has been populated for several million years. The area is characterized by its location between the Ethiopian high plateau, where high cultures flourished early, and the Arab neighbors of the Red Sea. From 1889, Eritrea was an Italian colony, but after World War II it became part of Ethiopia, according to a UN decision. When the Ethiopians in 1962 abolished the self-government that was promised, a war of liberation broke out that would last for three decades.
Eritrea is located in a part of Africa where some of the oldest traces of human existence have been found. Between 300 and 600 AD, the area was part of the great Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum (see further Ethiopia: Ancient History).
- AbbreviationFinder.org: Comprehensive guide to and popular abbreviations of Eritrea, covering history, economy, and social conditions.
Then Islam came to Eritrea with Arab merchants. The influence of the Arab world was great, especially in the coastal areas. From the 16th century, the coast in the north was mainly controlled by the Ottomans (Turks). In the highlands and along the coast to the south, the influence of Ethiopia consisted. For Eritrea political system, please check cancermatters.
Italian colony
Eventually, European colonial powers became interested in the region. During the 1880s, Italy occupied coastal areas around the cities of Assab and Massawa. The Italians continued from there into the country and soon conquered what is today Eritrea.
At one stroke in 1886, Ethiopians prevented them from advancing further. The foundation of the modern state was laid when the Ethiopian Emperor Menelik in 1889 signed a treaty with Italy and Eritrea became an Italian colony.
Many Eritreans lost their land during the colonial era of more than 40 years. This accelerated the move into cities where both working class and educated social groups grew. The mix of people from different backgrounds and the military service that many were forced to do helped lay the foundations for an Eritrean national identity that is unusually strong for a country in Africa.
Federation with Ethiopia
During World War II, the Italians were driven away from Eritrea and the area became a British protectorate in 1941. After the war, the victorious forces tried to decide what would happen to the former Italian territories. When they failed to reach a solution on the issue of Eritrea, it was left to the UN who tried to find out what the Eritreans wanted.
The Eritreans were found to be fragmented. Some wanted independence while others wanted to enter into a union with Ethiopia. In the end, the pressure from the United States decided, for strategic reasons, to see an Eritrea linked to the US ally Ethiopia. According to the UN decision, Eritrea from 1952 became an autonomous territory in federation with Ethiopia. Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie had the US set up a military base in Asmara.
After the Italian colonization and time as a British protectorate, Eritrean society was more politically and socially more advanced than semi-feudal Ethiopia. But the federation meant that power moved to Addis Ababa and Eritrea stagnated. The Ethiopian government is gradually increasing its autonomy. The proportion of Eritreans demanding full independence increased, and an increasingly nationalist colored resistance was organized.
In 1962, Ethiopian forces surrounded the Eritrean regional assembly building, and the already toothless parliament voted itself out. The federation was dissolved and Eritrea was incorporated as a region among others in the large neighboring state. It took place without protests from the UN or the United States who were kindly sued against Ethiopia; The logic of the Cold War went before all other considerations.
2010
August
The opposition forms an exile parliament
A number of opposition groups agreed at a meeting in Ethiopia to form an exile parliament. The Eritrean Democratic Alliance (EDA) includes eleven groups that claim to have carried out attacks on military targets in Eritrea earlier this year.
June
Qatar mediates in border dispute with Djibouti
Eritrea concludes agreement with Djibouti to allow Qatar to mediate in the border dispute. A few hundred Qatari soldiers are assigned to patrol the border area.
