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Eritrea formed part of the ancient Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum until the 7th cent. Thereafter Ethiopian emperors maintained an intermittent presence in the area until the mid-16th cent., when the Ottoman Empire gained control of much of the coastal region. Beginning in the mid-19th cent. Ethiopia struggled against Egypt and Italy for control of Eritrea. In the 1880s, Italy occupied the coastal areas around Aseb and Massawa, and by 1890 had extended its territory enough to proclaim the colony of Eritrea (named after the Roman term for the Red Sea, Mare erythraeum). The colony was later the main base for Italy's conquest (1935–36) of Ethiopia.
In World War II, Eritrea was captured (1941) by the British. Ethiopia had long demanded control of Eritrea on the ground of ethnic affinity, but Britain occupied Eritrea after the war and, beginning in 1949, administered it as a UN trust territory. In 1950 the United Nations decided that Eritrea was to be made independent as a federated part of Ethiopia, and in late 1952 this decision became effective. In late 1962 the Eritrean assembly voted to end the federal status and to unify Eritrea with Ethiopia. After 1962, Eritreans who opposed union carried on sporadic guerrilla warfare against Ethiopia and the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) was founded. In 1972 a rival insurgent group, the Eritrean Popular Liberation Forces (EPLF), was formed and battled the ELF for supremacy.
After Emperor Haile Selassie's overthrow in a military coup in 1974, the two insurgent groups united to fight against the Ethiopian government's forces. Fighting increased and by 1976 the Eritreans had virtually forced the government forces out of the province. However, the Ethiopian government, with massive amounts of aid and troops from the USSR and Cuba, was able to defeat the Eritreans in 1978. After their defeat the insurgents were forced to return to sporadic guerrilla warfare. During the 1980s the rebels continued their attacks on Ethiopian troops and eventually Eritreans controlled most of the countryside.
In 1991 the insurgents succeeded in capturing Asmara and the ports, giving them control of the province. That same year the United Nations scheduled a referendum on Eritrean independence. In 1993, after 30 years of warfare and the death of an estimated 200,000, Eritreans overwhelmingly voted for independence, and Isaias Afwerki, formerly the principal leader of the EPLF, became the new nation's first president. His party, renamed the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), became the only viable political organization. The new government enacted legislation to promote trade and investment and provide for the privatization of many state firms.
In the mid-1990s, Eritrean and Yemeni forces clashed over control of the Hanish and other island groups in the Red Sea; the dispute was resolved in 1998, largely in Yemen's favor. A border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea broke out in 1998 when Eritrean forces occupied disputed territory. Fighting was largely inconclusive, with many thousands killed on both sides, until May, 2000, when Ethiopian forces launched a major offensive, securing the disputed territory and driving further into Eritrea. A cease-fire agreement signed in June called for a truce, the establishment of a 15.5 mi (9.6 km) UN-patrolled buffer zone (in Eritrean territory), and the demarcation of the border by UN cartographers. The war hampered Eritrea's efforts to rebuild its economy and made the previously self-reliant young nation dependent on foreign aid to feed its citizens.
Peacekeeping forces arrived in significant numbers by Dec., 2000, and there was steady, if sometimes fitful, progress towards the goals of the cease-fire agreement in 2001. Late in the 2001 the government arrested a number of opposition leaders and journalists and closed private newspapers; elections scheduled for that December were indefinitely postponed. In Apr., 2002, the Hague Tribunal issued a complex ruling on the disputed border that favored Eritrea in some locations and Ethiopia in others, but Ethiopian resistance has delayed finalization of the border.
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