Origins

Eritreans come from the newest state in Africa, which achieved independence in 1993 after a thirty-year struggle that helped to forge a sense of identity out of a diverse population. Eritrea is a country of 124,000 square kilometres facing the Red Sea in northeastern Africa. It is bordered in the west by Sudan and to the south by Ethiopia, with which Eritrea has had a long and often difficult political relationship.

Eritrea’s approximately four million inhabitants include nine distinct ethnolinguistic groups: the Afars, Bilen, Hadareb (Beja), Kunama, Nara, Rashida, Saho, Tigre, and Behere Tigrigna. These peoples speak a variety of languages and profess several different religions. Among the most important languages are Tigrinya, Tigré, and Arabic. The central and southern highland region of the country, which includes the capital Asmara, is inhabited primarily by Tigrayans, who are Christians belonging to the Coptic Church. These people share the same language and customs with Tigrayans living in neighbouring northern Ethiopia. Along Eritrea’s northwestern coast of the Red Sea and along the border with Sudan live Muslims, composed mainly of Tigré- and Arabic-speaking groups.

Eritrea was part of this Aksum kingdom, which reached its height of power during the fourth to sixth century C.E. Sometime in the fourteenth century, Eritrea became an integral part of Abyssinia (Ethiopia). Abyssinian rule was first challenged in the sixteenth century, when the Red Sea coastal area fell to the Ottoman Turks who were to remain there for nearly three centuries. In the course of the nineteenth century, the Ottomans were displaced by the Egyptians, who not only controlled the coastal areas but also much of the interior.

During the 1880s, troops from Italy arrived to establish a colony which they named Eritrea (derived from the ancient Roman name for the Red Sea – Mare Erythraerum). The Italians fought with Ethiopia until they finally came to control all of Eritrea in 1896. Italian rule was to last for over half a century, during which time a large number of Italians (estimated at 15,000) arrived as colonial administrators. During the Italian period, Eritrea was modernized and its economy and standard of living soon reached a higher level than neighbouring Ethiopia. After 1935, when Italy conquered Ethiopia, Eritrea (whose boundaries were expanded southward and doubled in size) became one of the states – together with Ethiopia and Somalia – of Italian East Africa. During World War II, the British helped drive the Italians out of Ethiopia and restored the Emperor Haile Selassie to his throne in early 1941. At the same time, Eritrea was placed under British military administration.

With the end of World War II, the victorious Allies turned the question of Eritrea over to the United Nations. Several proposals were put forward, including independence or Italian trusteeship, but in the end the country was awarded to Ethiopia and British troops departed in 1952. The Eritreans were sharply divided over the new political situation. The Muslim population, in particular, was opposed to the Ethiopian solution.

Disregarding local discontent, the Ethiopian government brushed aside any ideas of a federation between two equal states and in 1962 made Eritrea its fourteenth province. Those Eritreans opposed to integration established the Eritrean Liberation Front (1961) and later the Marxist-oriented Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, and these groups which began an armed struggle against Ethiopian rule. The conflict, which frequently degenerated into full-scale war, was to last nearly three decades. It caused profound economic disruption in both Eritrea and Ethiopia and displaced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, forcing them to flee as refugees to neighbouring countries or abroad. The war continued even after Ethiopia’s emperor was deposed in 1974 and replaced by a Marxist regime. But, when the Marxist government collapsed in 1991, Ethiopia’s new coalition government brought an end to the war with Eritrea, whose population two years later voted to become an independent state.