57

Eritrea inherited from Italian colonization a territory in the shape of a narrow balcony overlooking 2,000 km of arid and mountainous coastline. In 1991, after a 30-year struggle, the Eritreans won their independence from Ethiopia, the second most populous state in Africa that in 1936 had fallen prey to Mussolini. The independence fronts posed a strategic threat to a major route of world trade. They have, as a result, changed the stakes and geopolitical relations between the states bordering the Red Sea and the powers whose ships have sailed along it. However, these battles have divided the Eritrean liberation movements into rival factions. From their internal struggles, Issayas Afewerki, the leader of the EPLF, emerged. As an irremovable president since 1991, he has known, over time, how to embrace all causes, sometimes the most contradictory, to eradicate the slightest opposition and thus strengthen his power, until when?