Eritrea

Overview

The Foreign Office link must be checked for the most recent information concerning the borders with Ethiopia and Sudan. Egyptian, Turkish and Italian colonists have all left their styles of architecture around the country. Some interesting sights are Cathedral in Massawa, the Orthodox Monastery of Debre Bizen and the tomb of Said Mustafa Wad Hasan. Deep gorges create the ambas, flat-topped tablelands which are a great deal higher than their surrounds which descend to the coastal regions and the pastoral areas.

History

Eritrea was awarded to Ethiopia in 1952 as part of a federation. Ethiopia's annexation of Eritrea as a province 10 years later sparked a 30-year struggle for independence that ended in 1991 with Eritrean rebels defeating governmental forces; independence was overwhelmingly approved in a 1993 referendum. A two-and-a-half-year border war with Ethiopia that erupted in 1998 ended under UN auspices on 12 December 2000. Eritrea currently hosts a UN peacekeeping operation that is monitoring a 25 km-wide Temporary Security Zone on the border with Ethiopia. An international commission, organized to resolve the border dispute, posted its findings in 2002 but final demarcation is on hold due to Ethiopian objections.