Italian Eritreans (or Eritrean Italians, Italian: Italo-eritrei) are Eritrean-born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to Eritrea during the Italian diaspora, or Italian-born people in Eritrea.
Their ancestry dates back from the beginning of the Italian colonization of Eritrea at the end of the 19th century, but only during 1930s they settled in large numbers.[5] In the 1939 census of Eritrea there were more than 76,000 Eritrean Italians, most of them living in Asmara (53,000 out of the city's total of 93,000).[6][7] Many Italian settlers got out of their colony after its conquest by the Allies in November 1941 and they were reduced to only 38,000 by 1946.[8] This also includes a population of mixed Italian and Eritrean descent; most Italian Eritreans still living in Eritrea are from this mixed group.
Although many of the remaining Italians stayed during the decolonization process after World War II and are actually assimilated to the Eritrean society, a few are stateless today, as none of them were given citizenship unless through marriage or, more rarely, by having it conferred upon them by the State.
From 1882 to 1941 Eritrea was ruled by the Kingdom of Italy. In those sixty years Eritrea was populated - mainly in the area of Asmara - by groups of Italian colonists, who moved there from the beginning of the 20th century.
The Italian Eritreans grew from 4,000 during World War I to nearly 100,000 at the beginning of World War II.[10]
Italian administration of Eritrea brought some of their own methods in the medical and agricultural sectors of Eritrean society (i.e. other access to sanitary and hospital services in the urban areas).
Furthermore, the Italians employed many Eritreans in public service (in particular in the police and public works departments) and oversaw the provision of urban amenities in Asmara and Massawa. In a region marked by cultural, linguistic, and religious diversity, a succession of Italian governors maintained a notable degree of unity and public order. The Italians also built many major infrastructural projects in Eritrea, including the Asmara-Massawa Cableway and the Eritrean Railway.[11]
Benito Mussolini's rise to power in Italy in 1922 brought profound changes to the colonial government in Eritrea. Mussolini established the Italian Empire in May 1936. The fascists imposed harsh rule that stressed the political and racial superiority of Italians. Eritreans were demoted to menial positions in the public sector in 1938.
Eritrea was chosen by the Italian government to be the industrial center of the Italian East Africa. The Italian government continued to implement agricultural reforms but primarily on farms owned by Italian colonists (exports of coffee boomed in the thirties). In the area of Asmara there were in 1940 more than 2000 small and medium-sized industrial companies, concentrated in the areas of construction, mechanics, textiles, electricity and food processing. Consequently, the living standard of life in Eritrea in 1939 was considered one of the best of Africa for the Italian colonists and for the Eritreans.[12]
The Mussolini government regarded the colony as a strategic base for future aggrandizement and ruled accordingly, using Eritrea as a base to launch its 1935–1936 campaign to colonize Ethiopia. In 1939 nearly 40% of the male Eritreans able to fight were enrolled in the colonial Italian Army: the best Italian colonial troops during World War II were the Eritrean Ascari, as stated by Italian Marshall Rodolfo Graziani and legendary officer Amedeo Guillet.[13]
Italian Eritrean population in Eritrea, from 1910 to 2008
Year
Italian Eritreans
Eritrea population
1910
1,000 (0.26%)
390,000
1935
3,100 (0.51%)
610,000
1939
76,000 (10.27%)
740,000
1946
38,000 (4.37%)
870,000
2008
800 (0.02%)
4,500,000
Asmara development
Italian settlers in Massawa
Asmara was populated by a numerous Italian community and the city acquired an Italian architectural look.[14]
The city of Asmara had a population of 98,000, of which 53,000 were Italians according to the Italian census of 1939. This fact made Asmara the main "Italian town" of the Italian empire in Africa. In all Eritrea the Italians were 75,000 in that year.[16]
Numerous industrial investments were done by the Italians in the area of Asmara and Massawa, but the beginning of World War II put a halt to the Italian industrialization of Eritrea.[17]
Map of the Africa Orientale Italiana: the biggest extension of Eritrea was reached during the Italian empire (1936–1941), when northern parts of conquered Ethiopia were assigned to Eritrea by the Italians as a reward for the Eritrean "Ascari'" help in the conquest of Ethiopia
The following Italian guerrilla war against the Allies was supported by some Eritrean colonial troops until the Italian armistice in September 1943. Eritrea was placed under British military administration after the Italian surrender in World War II.
The Italians in Eritrea started to move away from the country after the defeat of the Kingdom of Italy by the Allies, and Asmara in the British census of 1949 already had only 17,183 Italian Eritreans on a total population of 127,579. Most Italian settlers left for Italy, with others to United States, Middle East, and Australia.
Eritrea was placed under British military administration after the Italian surrender in the East African Campaign in World War II. The British initially maintained the Italian administration of Eritrea, but the country soon became involved in a violent struggle for independence (from the British in the late 1940s and, after 1952, from the Ethiopians, who annexed Eritrea in that year).
After the defeat of Italy, 70,000 Italian settlers remained in Eritrea.[18] The British military administration arrested and deported substantial numbers of the settler population as they were implicated with the Italian fascist regime.[18] Some settlers were involved in confrontations with Eritreans.[18] The Italians in Eritrea started to move away from the country after the final defeat of the Kingdom of Italy by the Allies, and by the time of the British census of 1949 Asmara had only 17,183 Italian Eritreans of a total population of 127,579. Most Italian settlers left for Italy, with others to United States, Middle East and Australia.
During the final years of World War II, Vincenzo di Meglio had defended the Italians of Eritrea politically and successively promoted the independence of Eritrea.[19] After the war he was named director of the Comitato Rappresentativo Italiani dell' Eritrea (CRIE). In 1947 he supported the creation of the "Associazione Italo-Eritrei" and the "Associazione Veterani Ascari" in order to ally with the Eritreans favorable to Italy in Eritrea.[20]
He co-founded the Partito Nuova Eritrea Pro Italia (New Eritrea Pro-Italy Party) in September 1947 in Asmara as an Eritrean political party favorable to the Italian presence in Eritrea. It obtained more than 200,000 applications for membership in a single month, the majority of whom were former Italian soldiers and Eritrean Ascari. The organization was even backed by the government of Italy. The main objective of this party was Eritrean freedom, but they had a pre-condition that stated that before independence the country should be governed by Italy for at least 15 years (as would happen with Italian Somalia).
With the peace treaty of 1947, the new Italian Republic officially accepted the end of the colony. As a consequence the Italian community started to disappear, especially after the Ethiopian Empire took control of Eritrea in 1952. Some Italo-Eritrean were welcomed by the Ethiopian government, like the brothers Italo Vassalo and Luciano Vassalo, champions of football who won the 1962 African Cup of Nations, but since then the Eritrean Italians have diminished as a community and now are reduced to a few hundreds, mainly located in the capital Asmara. The most renowned of them is the professional cyclist Domenico Vaccaro, who won the last stage of the Tour of Eritrea in Asmara in April 2008.[21]
Language and religion
Most Italian Eritreans can speak Italian. The last remaining Italian-language school, the Scuola Italiana di Asmara, renowned in Eritrea for its sports activities, closed in 2020.[22] Italian is still spoken in commerce in Eritrea.[23]
Until 1975, there were in Asmara an Italian Lyceum, an Italian Technical Institute, an Italian Middle school and special university courses in Medicine held by Italian teachers.[24]
Gino Corbella, an Italian consul in Asmara, estimated that the diffusion of the Italian language in Eritrea was supported even by the fact that in 1959, nearly 20,000 Eritreans were descendants of Italians who had illegitimate sons/daughters with Eritrean women during colonial times.[2][3]
The assimilated Italian Eritreans of the new generations (in 2007 they numbered nearly 900 persons) speak Tigrinya and only a bit of Italian or speak Italian as second language.
↑ The Italian Ambassador stated at the 2008 Film Festival in Asmara Archived 2012-02-18 at the Wayback Machine that nearly 100,000 Eritreans in 2008 have Italian blood, because they have at least one grandfather or great-grandfather from Italy
The Italian empire before WWII is shown in red. Pink areas were annexed/occupied for various periods between 1940 and 1943. Italian concessions and forts in China are not shown.
Eritrea is an ancient name, associated in the past with its Greek form Erythraia, Ἐρυθραία, and its derived Latin form Erythræa. This name relates to that of the Red Sea, then called the Erythræan Sea, from the Greek for "red", ἐρυθρός, erythros. But earlier Eritrea was called Mdre Bahri. The Italians created the colony of Eritrea in the 19th century around Asmara and named it with its current name. After World War II, Eritrea annexed to Ethiopia. Following the communist Ethiopian government's defeat in 1991 by the coalition created by armed groups notably the EPLF, Eritrea declared its independence. Eritrea officially celebrated its 1st anniversary of independence on May 24, 1993.
Asmara, or Asmera, is the capital and most populous city of Eritrea, in the country's Central Region. It sits at an elevation of 2,325 metres (7,628 ft), making it the sixth highest capital in the world by altitude and the second highest capital in Africa. The city is located at the tip of an escarpment that is both the northwestern edge of the Eritrean Highlands and the Great Rift Valley in neighbouring Ethiopia. In 2017, the city was declared as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its well-preserved modernist architecture. According to local traditions, the city was founded after four separate villages unified to live together peacefully after long periods of conflict. Asmara had long been overshadowed by nearby Debarwa, the residence of the Bahr Negash or the governor of the coastal province, however it still existed as a major settlement for over half a millennium and enjoyed some importance as it stood on the trade route to Massawa. Asmara first rose to prominence during the 20th century, when it became capital of Italian Eritrea. Under Italian rule the city of Asmara experienced rapid urbanization and modernization.
The Eritrean Railway is the only railway system in Eritrea. It was constructed between 1887 and 1932 during the Italian Eritrea colony and connects the port of Massawa with Asmara. Originally it also connected to Bishia. The line was partly damaged by warfare in subsequent decades, but was rebuilt in the 1990s. Vintage equipment is still used on the line.
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a war of aggression waged by Italy against Ethiopia, which lasted from October 1935 to February 1937. In Ethiopia it is often referred to simply as the Italian Invasion, and in Italy as the Ethiopian War. It is seen as an example of the expansionist policy that characterized the Axis powers and the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations before the outbreak of World War II.
Massawa or Mitsiwa is a port city in the Northern Red Sea region of Eritrea, located on the Red Sea at the northern end of the Gulf of Zula beside the Dahlak Archipelago. It has been a historically important port for many centuries. Massawa has been ruled or occupied by a succession of polities during its history, including the Kingdom of Punt, Kingdom of Aksum, Medri Bahri kingdom, the Ethiopian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Italy.
Articles related to Eritrea include:
Zaptié was the designation given to locally raised gendarmerie units in the Italian colonies of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, Eritrea and Somaliland between 1888 and 1943.
The Italian guerrilla war in Ethiopia was a conflict fought from the summer of 1941 to the autumn of 1943 by remnants of Italian troops in Ethiopia and Somalia, in a short-lived attempt to re-establish Italian East Africa. The guerrilla campaign was fought following the Italian defeat in the East African campaign of World War II, while the war was still raging in Northern Africa and Europe.
The Royal Corps Of Eritrean Colonial Troops were indigenous soldiers from Eritrea, who were enrolled as askaris in the Royal Corps of Colonial Troops of the Royal Italian Army during the period 1889–1941.
Bands was an Italian military term for irregular forces, composed of natives, with Italian officers and NCOs in command. These units were employed by the Italian Army as auxiliaries to the regular national and colonial military forces. They were also known to the British colonial forces as "armed Bands".
Italian Eritrea was a colony of the Kingdom of Italy in the territory of present-day Eritrea. The first Italian establishment in the area was the purchase of Assab by the Rubattino Shipping Company in 1869, which came under government control in 1882. Occupation of Massawa in 1885 and the subsequent expansion of territory would gradually engulf the region and in 1889 the Ethiopian Empire recognized the Italian possession in the Treaty of Wuchale. In 1890 the Colony of Eritrea was officially founded.
Eritrea Governorate was one of the six governorates of Italian East Africa. Its capital was Asmara. It was formed from the previously separate colony of Italian Eritrea, which was enlarged with parts of the conquered Ethiopian Empire following the Second Italo-Ethiopian War.
Italian Ethiopia, also known as the Italian Empire of Ethiopia, was the territory of the Ethiopian Empire, which Italy occupied for approximately five years. Italian Ethiopia was not an administrative entity, but the formal name of the former territory of the Ethiopian Empire, which now constituted the Governorates of Amhara, Harar, Galla-Sidamo, and Scioa after the establishment of Italian East Africa.
The Royal Corps of Colonial Troops was a corps of the Royal Italian Army, in which all the Italian colonial troops were grouped until the end of World War II in North Africa campaign.
The Royal Corps of Somali Colonial Troops was the colonial body of the Royal Italian Army based in Italian Somaliland, in present-day northeastern, central and southern Somalia.
Giovanni Cerrina Feroni was an Italian soldier. He was twice colonial governor of Eritrea and also a governor of Italian Somaliland.
The Italian colonial railways started with the opening in 1888 of a short section of line in Italian Eritrea, and ended in 1943 with the loss of Italian Libya after the Allied offensive in North Africa and the destruction of the railways around Italian Tripoli. The colonial railways of the Kingdom of Italy reached 1,561 kilometres (970 mi) before WWII.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Asmara, Eritrea. Asmara was under Italian colonial rule from 1889 until 1941.
Eritrea–Italy relations are the bilateral relations between Italy and Eritrea. Both nations are members of the United Nations.
Domenico Turitto was an Italian major who was part of the Royal Colonial Corps of Eritrea. He participated in the Mahdist War as he commanded the 1st Indigenous Infantry Battalion, occupying the city of Kassala and distinguishing himself at the Battle of Kassala. During the First Italo-Ethiopian War, Turitto commanded the vanguard of the Indigenous brigade under the command of Matteo Albertone before being killed in the battle. He was also a recipient of the Silver and Bronze Medals of Military Valor and a knight of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus.
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