Massawa

Massawa is an old port and has changed hands many times. Its islands gave a sheltered anchorage, and the trade of the highlands — ivory and hides among it — reached the Red Sea near here; the Aksumite port of Adulis lay about 40 km to the south, and Massawa seems to have emerged as a port between the eighth and tenth centuries as Adulis declined. Islam came early to this shore, and the town became a Muslim trading settlement, the link between the Red Sea coast and the Christian highlands.

The Ottomans took Massawa in 1557 and held it, directly or through local and Egyptian governors, until 1865, when it passed to Egypt. The Egyptian governor Werner Munzinger rebuilt much of the port from 1872, adding the causeways and the palace on Taulud, and the old town kept its houses of coral, shuttered windows, arcades and mosques among narrow lanes. Italy seized the port in 1885 and made Massawa the capital of its new colony of Eritrea until the administration moved up to Asmara in 1897; the railway begun here in 1887 reached Asmara in 1911.

The twentieth century was hard on the town. Its port served Italian, British and later Ethiopian interests, and during the war of independence it was fought over directly: the Eritrean offensive known as Operation Fenkil took the town in February 1990, and the shelling and aerial bombardment that followed destroyed most of the city, including numerous historic Islamic buildings. Restoration has been partial, and damaged buildings still stand between the restored ones.

Massawa is a coastal town rather than a highland one, and that shapes everything. Its population is largely Muslim, and the links across the Red Sea to Arabia are as old as the links inland: the Dahlak islands offshore were an Islamic foothold from the eighth century, and the town long answered to rulers on the far side of the sea. Tigrinya, Arabic and English are the country's working languages.

The mosque sets the week, Ramadan reshapes the year, and the two Eids are the great celebrations, with the town at its busiest after dark. Hospitality follows the same patterns as in the rest of the country — the coffee ceremony, brewed three times and served with incense — and tea is offered to anyone who declines coffee.

The Italian period left espresso, pasta and many buildings, designed with a conscious effort to keep the old town's scale and its narrow, irregular lanes, and the Ottoman and Egyptian centuries left the older buildings. Life is lived at night: in the hottest months the streets are empty by day and fill after sunset, when families walk on the causeway and the cafés put chairs on the pavement. The independence war is remembered in War Memory Square on Taulud, where three tanks stand by the entrance to the causeway as a memorial to the 1990 battle.

Massawa is a small town for a national port, with most residents living on the mainland rather than on the historic islands. Its population grew to about 60,000 by the mid-1980s, fell sharply in the war, and has since been reduced again by decades of sanctions and isolation, which have shrunk trade and led many people to leave.

The port is the economy: cargo for the highlands, exports of copper and zinc from the Bisha mine, imports of oil and consumer goods, and fishing boats, alongside government employment, national service postings, small trade and the salt and cement works nearby, which run at far below full capacity. Since September 2026 a crisis at the Bab al-Mandab strait has disrupted shipping through the southern Red Sea, and fuel, power and imported goods are frequently short.

The heat organises the day more strictly than in any other Eritrean town. Boats go out and the market trades at first light; by mid-morning shutters come down and the streets empty for several hours; work resumes late in the afternoon and the social evening runs long, with tea stalls, food stands and the waterfront in use until late. Air conditioning is a luxury and most people rely on shade, courtyards and the sea breeze.

Massawa eats from the sea. Red Sea fish is grilled, fried in pieces or cooked in a spicy stew, and eaten with bread, rice or injera, and seafood appears on the tables near the harbour; Eritrean cooking as a whole uses more seafood than Ethiopian, thanks to this coast. Fish is also one of the meats that go into the spicy stews served with injera across the country.

The highland repertoire is here too: injera with zigni, alicha and shiro, eaten from a shared platter, along with the Italian legacy of pasta and bread. Berbere, the national spice mix, accompanies almost every dish, and trade across the water has long brought goods and tastes from Arabia.

Vegetables and grain come down from the highlands, and the market also sells spices and imported goods. Tea is offered to anyone who declines coffee, espresso survives from the Italian period, and the coffee ceremony, brewed three times and served with incense and popcorn, is performed in homes. Sowa, the home-brewed barley beer, and mies, a honey wine, are little drunk in a largely Muslim town, as Muslim Eritreans abstain from alcohol.