History
The Hanish Islands were claimed by the Ottoman Empire, a claim abandoned by Turkey in 1923. From that point forward they were administered by the Italian Colony of Eritrea until 1941. In 1941, after the surrender of the Italian colonial forces, the British army established Eritrea as a protectorate. Throughout the 1970s Ethiopia (which had annexed Eritrea) and Yemen claimed the islands. Ethiopian interest in the Islands stemmed from the fact that Eritrean independence groups used the Hanish Islands, and the nearby Zuqar Island, as a base to attack Ethiopian military interests.
In 1991 Eritrea gained independence and in 1995 attempted to exercise sovereignty over the archipelago. This started the Hanish Islands conflict, which was eventually ended after a brief conflict between Eritrea and Yemen over the islands. In all, 3–12 Eritreans and 4-15 Yemenis were killed in the fighting.
Read more about this topic: Hanish Islands
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The visual is sorely undervalued in modern scholarship. Art history has attained only a fraction of the conceptual sophistication of literary criticism.... Drunk with self-love, criticism has hugely overestimated the centrality of language to western culture. It has failed to see the electrifying sign language of images.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.”
—Ben C. Bradlee (b. 1921)