Ethiopia and Eritrea: From Thirty Years of War to a Peace Deal, and What Came After

1890–1941. Eritrea is an Italian colony, administered separately from Ethiopia. Asmara is built out in the modernist style that would later earn it UNESCO World Heritage listing.

1952. After a period of British administration, the United Nations federates Eritrea with Ethiopia, granting it its own parliament and administration.

1962. The federal arrangement is dissolved and Eritrea is annexed as an Ethiopian province. Armed resistance follows, and the war of independence begins.

1991. The Eritrean People's Liberation Front takes Asmara as the Derg regime falls in Addis Ababa. Eritrea comes under provisional government.

1993. A referendum returns an overwhelming vote for independence. Eritrea becomes a sovereign state on 24 May, and Ethiopia becomes landlocked.

1998–2000. A border war breaks out, centred on the town of Badme. It is among the deadliest interstate conflicts in modern African history. The Algiers Agreement ends the fighting in December 2000 and establishes a boundary commission.

2002. The commission issues its ruling, awarding Badme to Eritrea. Ethiopia does not implement it. The frontier remains closed and the relationship enters what becomes known as the "no war, no peace" period, lasting sixteen years.

2018. Ethiopia announces it will accept the boundary ruling. Leaders meet in Asmara, a joint declaration ends the state of war, flights and phone lines resume, and border crossings open. The Nobel Peace Prize follows.

After 2018. Crossings that opened were later closed again, and relations cooled through the period of the Tigray conflict and the 2022 cessation-of-hostilities agreement. The peace declaration has not been formally revoked, but the practical opening has not been sustained.

Why it still matters. Ethiopia's access to the sea, Eritrea's regional posture, and the security of the Red Sea coast all trace back to this relationship. No account of the Horn works without it.