Eritreans in the United Kingdom
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 40,000 (2008 Estimate) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
|
Primarily London (North, West and South) Also Sheffield, Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester | |
| Languages | |
| Tigrinya, English, others | |
| Religion | |
|
Predominantly Christianity (including Eritrean Orthodox and Roman Catholic) Others Islam |
Eritreans in the United Kingdom are an ethnic group that consist of Eritrean immigrants to the United Kingdom as well as their descendants. Overall, it is one of the smaller subgroups of immigrants to the UK from Africa.
History
Eritreans first started migrating to the United Kingdom in the early 1960s when the Eritrean War of Independence started. Following a federation between Eritrea and Ethiopia in 1952, Haile Selassie annexed Eritrea as its 14th province in 1961 sparking a war between Eritrean rebels and the Ethiopian government. These immigrants were mainly middle-class "highland" Eritreans of the Tigrinya ethnic group. The second wave of immigrants came in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, shortly before Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia.
More recently, many immigrants have been coming to the United Kingdom from other countries in Europe and Eritrea. Many Eritreans are reported to leave the country to seeking better lives abroad, with an estimated 1 in 5 Eritreans living outside Eritrea.
Community
There are now many established Eritrean restaurants in the United Kingdom, mainly in the London area. There are also many established Eritrean Churches in the U.K. also mainly in the London area, including Kidane Mehret Eritrean Orthodox Church in Shepherd's Bush, St. Michael's Eritrean Orthodox Church in Camberwell and the Medhani Alem Church in Manchester.