Eritrea (1983: Doomsday)

Eritrea is a marxist country in east Africa, it gained its independence from neerby Ethiopia following the long and bloody Eritrean War Of Independence (1961-1984) and a civil war.

Pre-Doomsday
The Eritean War Of Independence had allready been going on for twenty two years at the time of doomsday. Ethiopian forces had been making sucsesses in the war due to their suport by the USSR and Cuba but Eritean rebels were still fighting.

Liberation (1983-1984)
While the Eritrean rebels were unefected by doomsday the Ethiopian government suffered a massive loss of resources and supplies. Ethiopia lost its suport from the USSR and Cuba which allowed the Eritrean rebels to begin making gains, they captured the Ethiopian naval base at Massawa and with it the seaplane tender Ethiopia along with its seaplane complement. The Eritean forces also captured the ajoining air force base and all of the fourty aircraft their. By early 1984 Eritrean rebels and captured all of thier orignal borders but the Ethiopian government continued to retaliate, however in June 1984 the Derg government of Ethiopia faced a rebellion in thier own country and they reluctently gave Eritrea to the rebels.

At the end of the war the Ethiopian navy and large parts of the Ethiopian Air Force were captured by the rebels.

Rebuilding
All of Eritrea had been severely damaged in the war of independence so the first major task facing the new country was reconstruction. Trying to be loyal to thier Marxist beliefs the government set up free hospitals to try and bring down death rates, farms were constructed across the country so that there would be enogth food. However a drought in the mid 80's resulted in massive numbers of deaths and reduced the countrys population to just over a million.

The Eritrean government was unflinched by this and its only response was to increase food stockpiles incase a similar event occured in the future and they continued to rebuild the country by reopening the Eritrea railway. Despite all of the governments efforts Eritrean people remained poor and only just managed to survive, discontent grew massively to the point that in 1987 the hard line Marxist elements of the government siezed control of the Army and Navy and gained control of the government in a bloody coup d'eat.