Eritrean War of Independence

From 1961 to 1991 Eritrean liberation movements fought Ethiopia in a thirty-year war that ended in independence.

Overview

Eritrea, a former Italian colony, was federated with Ethiopia in 1952, but Emperor Haile Selassie dissolved the federation and annexed it in 1962. The Eritrean Liberation Front began an armed struggle in 1961, and the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front later became the dominant movement. The war continued after the Derg overthrew the emperor in 1974, with the rebels holding out in the mountains around Nakfa. The EPLF captured the port of Massawa in 1990, and in May 1991 Eritrean forces entered Asmara as the Derg regime collapsed. An internationally monitored referendum in 1993 approved independence overwhelmingly, and Eritrea became a sovereign state.