NewsTracker Answers for week of July 15, 2019

Q: A victim of mistaken identity, an Eritrean man extradited to Italy for people smuggling was freed last week after spending three years in prison insisting that he was not who prosecutors said he was. Where is Eritrea?

Circle the area on this map

Q: Despite DNA evidence and witness testimony, prosecutors maintained that the imprisoned farmer was really a notorious Eritrean smuggler linked to the deaths of 359 migrants who drowned near an Italian island in which body of water?

A. Black Sea

B. Mediterranean Sea

C. Red Sea

D. Weddell Sea

B. The peninsula and islands that comprise Italy are in the Mediterranean Sea. Over the last several yeas many of the migrants fleeing Africa for Europe have landed in Italy. The current Italian government is trying to stop the flow and is even turning back ships which rescue migrants from drowning in the Mediterranean.

Q: Eritrea’s name is based on the ancient Greek name for which body of water northeast and east of the country?

A. Black Sea

B. Caribbean Sea

C. Red Sea

D. Weddell Sea

C. Eritrea has a long coastline along the Red Sea which separates Africa from Asia.

Q: The creation of modern-day Eritrea is a result of a colony formed in 1890 by which European nation?

A. Britain

B. Germany

C. Greece

D. Italy

D. Italy combined independent, distinct kingdoms and sultanates to create the colony it controlled until its colonial army was defeated in 1942 by British forces during World War II. British and Italian investigators had worked together to capture the Eritrean farmer who was misidentified as a migrant smuggling kingpin with a similar name.

Q: The British Military Administration controlled Eritrea until 1952 when the UN made territory a semi-independent part of what nation on its southern border?

A. Ethiopia

B. Kenya

C. Somalia

D. Sudan

A. In 1962, Ethiopia annulled the Eritrean parliament and formally annexed Eritrea. That sparked a 30-year civil war that ended with Eritrean independence in 1993. Eritrea and Ethiopia also fought a war from 1998 to 2000. The two nations finally established normal diplomatic relations in 2018.