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I had to google Eritrea. Its a tiny country that has been at war with its neighbor, Ethiopia for 30 years, and also has continual skirmishes (artillery exchanges) with its other neighbor, Sudan.
It has 9 ethnic groups, two religions: islam and christianity, and three working languages (english is one of them).

Its a tiny little country and its littered with fields of undiscovered landmines from nearly 60 years of war.

Amazingly its supposed to be a democracy, but its president declare martial law years ago...so its classified by those who know as a military dictatorship.

In the late 19th century when the other European countries were carving up Africa, Italy got only some crumbs...they annexed Somalia and Eritrea (so called after the ancient Greek name for the Red Sea) but failed in their attempt to conquer Ethiopia (Abyssinia). In 1935 Mussolini invaded Ethiopia and managed to conquer the country, but the Italians were driven out by the British in 1941, who also took over Eritrea.

The British stayed until 1952, when Eritrea was made part of a federation with Ethiopia. When the Ethiopians turned it into a province, the Eritreans fought for their independence, a war which went on for 30 years. Finally they were recognized as independent in 1993.

The war between the two countries which broke out in 1998 was senseless and devastating. Until then Eritrea seemed to have a little more promise than the average African country. In terms of life expectancy and infant mortality rates, for example, it is almost at the level of Moldova, the worst-off European country.