With an area of 121,300 square kilometers (46,800 square miles) and an estimated population of 4.5 million, Eritrea is a relatively small state located on the Red Sea. It is bounded on the north and west by Sudan, on the south by Ethiopia, and on the east by the Red Sea and Djibouti. Eritrea has close to 1,100 kilometers (670 miles) of coastline and it is located along one of the busiest oil transit sea routes in the world. Asmara, the capital city, is estimated to have a population of 500,000.

Eritrea was an Italian colony from 1885 to 1941, when Italy was forced to relinquish its East African colonies to Allied powers after World War II (1939–1945). Between 1941 and 1952 the British administered Eritrea as a United Nations (UN) Trust Territory, and in 1952 the UN federated Eritrea with Ethiopia. Ethiopia incorporated Eritrea in 1962.

Resistance to the union with Ethiopia started in the early 1960s. The Eritrean Liberation...