Keren is the 'other' Eritrea: if Asmara is the Italian city on the plateau, all cathedrals and cafés, Keren —just 90 km away but a thousand metres lower— is a warm, mostly Muslim city with mosques, palm trees and a pace that feels closer to the Sahel and the Arab world. It is the capital of the Anseba region and the heart of the Bilen people, and its big draw is being a melting pot where herders, farmers and traders from half a dozen ethnic groups cross paths.
The highlight is its legendary Monday market, one of the most picturesque in East Africa, with its famous camel and livestock market where nomads from the west haggle amid the dust and the din. Add to that the Mariam Dearit shrine, an image of the Virgin set inside the trunk of a centuries-old baobab and a pilgrimage site for Christians and Muslims alike, and a war cemetery that recalls the bloody Battle of Keren of 1941, a decisive moment of the Second World War in Africa.
This guide covers Keren with a practical eye: when to go so you don't miss the market, how to visit the Virgin's baobab, what remains of the Italian and Ottoman architecture, where to eat and how to get there from Asmara with your travel permit in order. A day trip (or better, one with an overnight stay) that shows the most diverse and human side of Eritrea.
Once the centre of the Bilen people, Keren grew as a trading hub on the route between the plateau and the western lowlands. The Egyptians occupied it in the 19th century, and then came Italian rule, which linked it to Asmara by rail and left behind buildings, a station and colonial villas. In 1941 it was the scene of the Battle of Keren, one of the toughest fights of the Second World War in East Africa, when British and Indian troops broke the last Italian line of defence. Later it was caught right in the middle of the war of independence. Its full history, from the Bilen kingdom to today's Eritrea, is told on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The mountainous Muslim north: Keren and its camel market, the fertile valley of Elabered and Nakfa, the town that became the symbol of the war of independence and gave its name to the national currency.
Read the history of The north: Keren and Anseba →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before modern borders existed, the valley where Keren stands today was, and still is, the heartland of the Bilen people. They are a Cushitic-speaking community who, according to their traditions, arrived from the north and east many centuries ago. The Bilen settled on these fertile, well-watered lands at the foot of the mountains, mixing and living alongside Tigre herders and other lowland peoples. In the local languages, the name Keren is usually translated as 'height' or 'high place', a reference to the way it overlooks the valley.
Keren's location is no accident. The city sits at a natural crossroads between the Asmara plateau to the southeast and the vast western lowlands that slope down towards Sudan. Being a crossroads made it a meeting and trading point from very early on. Here, highland farmers traded their produce for the livestock, salt and goods of the nomads. That blend of peoples, languages and religions is still Keren's defining trait today.
Over the centuries, the region came under the sway of various powers from the Abyssinian plateau and the Red Sea, yet it never lost its own character. Islam reached the lowlands while Orthodox Christianity held on in the highlands. Together they wove the distinctive religious balance of the area, where mosques and churches stand just a few kilometres apart.
In the 19th century, when the Red Sea had become a stage for imperial rivalries, Keren stepped fully into modern history. Ottoman Egypt was expanding along the African coast and occupied the area around the 1870s. It left its mark on the commercial and religious life of a city whose Muslim community was growing in weight. Soon afterwards, the scramble for the Horn of Africa changed hands. Italy had landed at Massawa in 1885 and was gradually extending its control inland.
Around 1889, the Italians made Keren part of their new colony of Eritrea, officially proclaimed in 1890. For the colonial authorities the city was a key stronghold. It controlled the route between the plateau and the west, and it was a major farming and trading centre. The Italians built villas, offices and barracks. Above all, they extended the extraordinary railway line that already linked Massawa with Asmara on to Keren. It was a feat of engineering that climbed up and down the mountains through tunnels and over bridges.
Under Italian rule Keren modernised and grew without losing its mixed character. Italian settlers, Muslim merchants, Bilen farmers and workers from all over the colony crossed paths in its streets. According to popular devotion, it was during these years that an image of the Virgin Mary was placed inside the trunk of an old baobab on the outskirts. This was the origin of the Mariam Dearit shrine, which in time would become the city's spiritual symbol.
Keren's name was etched into the military history of the 20th century by the battle fought in its mountains between February and April 1941, during the East African campaign of the Second World War. After Fascist Italy entered the war, the British launched an offensive to drive Mussolini's forces out of Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. Keren guarded the gorge through which the road and the railway climb from the western lowlands up to the plateau and Asmara. It was the last major defensive barrier.
The terrain favoured the defenders: a deep gorge flanked by steep, well-fortified mountains. There the Italians concentrated some 23,000 men, regular and colonial troops, with plenty of artillery. For almost two months, British, Indian and Free French forces fought brutal battles to take those heights one summit at a time. It was one of the bloodiest and most decisive battles of the whole African campaign. Indian soldiers in particular played a heroic part in the final assault.
The Italian defence fell on 27 March 1941. Victory at Keren opened the road to Asmara, which surrendered a few days later. The battle sealed the end of Italy's colonial empire in the Horn of Africa. Its memory lives on in the well-kept Keren Commonwealth War Cemetery. More than four hundred British, Indian and other fallen soldiers rest there in Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and Jewish sections that reflect the diversity of that army.
After the Italian defeat, Eritrea came under British military administration. In 1952 the United Nations decided to federate it with Ethiopia. The federation, however, was steadily eroded. In 1962 Emperor Haile Selassie annexed the territory outright, dissolving Eritrean autonomy. That act lit the fuse of a long war of independence that would last thirty years and leave a deep mark on cities like Keren.
Because of its strategic position and its population, Keren was a recurring battleground. The fighting pitted the Eritrean guerrillas, first the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) and later the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF), against the Ethiopian army. The city changed hands and endured fighting, bombing and the hardships of war. Even today, Keren's 'tank graveyard', with its rusting armoured vehicles, and the scars on the landscape recall those decades of violence.
The war ended in 1991, when the EPLF took Asmara and brought Ethiopian rule to an end. In 1993, after a referendum, Eritrea declared its independence. Keren, like the rest of the country, then began the hard work of rebuilding. Little by little it recovered its commercial life, its markets and its standing as the nation's second city.
Today's Keren is a calm, warm city in the Anseba region, the second largest in the country after Asmara. Its great value is human and cultural. It is where the Bilen, Tigre, Nara, Hedareb and Tigrinya peoples meet. It is also one of the few places where a visitor can feel, in a single day, both the Muslim Eritrea of the lowlands and the Christian Eritrea of the highlands. Mosques and churches, markets and shrines all sit within a few kilometres of each other.
You can see that mix in everyday life, and above all at its famous Monday market. On Mondays the big livestock and camel market draws traders and herders from across the region in a parade of faces, clothes and languages. The Mariam Dearit shrine, the Virgin of the baobab, is still a place of pilgrimage for Christians and Muslims alike. Its festival at the end of May is one of the country's great religious events.
The past lives on in the Italian architecture of the centre, in the old station of a railway that is now barely used, in the immaculate war cemetery and in the orchards of the nearby Elabered estate. Keren doesn't have the grand monuments of other African cities. What it offers is harder to find: the genuine experience of a crossroads where, for centuries, different peoples and faiths learned to live together.
