Eritrea Marks Independence Anniversary

Eritrea marks its independence anniversary on 24 May, commemorating the entry of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front into Asmara in 1991 and the formal establishment of the state in 1993.

The history behind the date is long. Eritrea was an Italian colony from the 1890s, came under British administration after the Second World War, and was federated with Ethiopia by United Nations resolution in 1952 with its own parliament and administration. The federation was dissolved in 1962 and Eritrea annexed as a province, which began the armed struggle.

The war lasted three decades and is among the longest in modern African history. It ended in 1991 with the fall of the Derg in Addis Ababa and the EPLF's entry into Asmara. A referendum in 1993 returned an overwhelming vote for independence, and Eritrea became a sovereign state on 24 May of that year.

The commemoration is observed in Eritrea and across a large diaspora in Europe, North America, the Middle East and neighbouring African states, with events organised by community associations.

The period since independence has been shaped by the 1998–2000 border war with Ethiopia and its long aftermath. National service, introduced in 1995, and its extension during and after that conflict, has been the subject of sustained international scrutiny and is among the most frequently cited factors in Eritrean emigration.

Asmara itself is part of what the anniversary marks. The capital's early-twentieth-century modernist architecture was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2017, recognising one of the most complete surviving ensembles of its kind.