History of Eritrea

The Eritrean Struggle for Freedom lasted 30 years and it was known as the most pushful in the Horn of Africa. In 1991, the troops that belonged to the front popular of Tigrinya Freedom, which were armed and trained by EPFL got Massawa port. Thanks to this occupation, the Eritreans could throw away Ethiopian army of Eritrea territory.

At the end of the century XIX, after endless battles because of Italian advances on the kingdom of Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II, both decided to establish new international borders, so Ethiopia stayed independent and Eritrea for the first time in the history, was a separated territory, an Italian Colony.

But in 1936, the Italy of Mussolini decided to make larger his influence by whole Ethiopia; until 1941, when the Allies beat the Italian army and which was its colony. Eritrea started being administered by the British, who dismantled and removed the headways that the old settles had left. In this way, the country that was one of the most developed among the European colonies in Africa, broke its economy and unemployment started to worry its people.

After ten years of British administration, Eritrea was a free government within Ethiopia, according to the U.N. (United Nations). But in 1962, the Emperor Haile Selassie decided to finish the federation and Eritrea took part as a province of Ethiopia, but people disagreed with this idea and its was the beginning of a long war.

The Eritrean Struggle for Freedom lasted 30 years and it was known as the most pushful in the Horn of Africa. In 1991, the troops that belonged to the front popular of Tigrinya Freedom, which were armed and trained by E.P.F.L. (Eritrean Power of Liberty Forces), got Massawa port. Thanks to this occupation, the Eritreans could throw away Ethiopian army of Eritrea territory.

In the end, in May 1993, after a referendum supervised by U.N., Eritrea got its independence. Then, the relations between theses two countries got on well for some years, they had the same currency, borders were not limited and Ethiopia had the access to Assab port, and got in this way to have an excellent outlet to the sea.

But in 1997, Eritrea restricted these rights to access, and it created its own currency and the following year it took the border cities of Badme and Zalambesa, making that the common borders of 1000 km became in the scene of other war. This time they fought during 2 years and it was a devastating result: 70,000 deaths, more than 800.000 displaced and two of the poorest economies were destroyed.

In the year 2000, both nations signed deals, starting a weak process of peace. The border was established in the town of Zalambesa and today is controlled by 4,200 soldiers of U.N. peace keeping force, whose destiny was Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Today, both contenders disagree with this mark and their fight goes on, but through diplomatic ways now.

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