She was called the Sun of Eritrea. Singer and musician Tsehaytu Beraki was a renowned artist and freedom fighter in the African country, before she came to the Netherlands and settled in Rotterdam.

In 2003 she released a highly acclaimed double CD entitled Selam ('Peace'). She was already 65 years old then. She died 79 years old on May 24th. "She still had a shard in her head, but in spite of that she stayed vital until old age. Ultimately, a brain haemorrhage has become fatal, "says Terrie Hessels, guitarist of The Ex, who took her in the Netherlands under his wing.

She was born in the village of Quatit, 100 kilometers from the current Eritrean capital Asmara. that was then still part of the Italian colonial empire. After her father died, her mother moved to Asmara, where she kept the family with hair braiding.

Tsehaytu Beraki went to school with the missionaries. One of her aunts had a krar, a five-string harp. She learned to play herself on this plucked instrument. From her 11th year she started performing at weddings and parties. She mostly played love songs, especially by composer Tsehaytu Zennar, including the song Annes Ay keremney Wala Hankas Yekunye ('I need a man as soon as possible, even if he is crippled'). When she was 16 she became a full-time musician and went to the suwa cafes in the country.

Eritrea was annexed in 1962 by Emperor Haile Selassie as the fourteenth province of Ethiopia. This led to the creation of a resistance movement Eritrea Liberation Front (ELF). Beraki started writing songs that also contained political messages. "They were not real protest songs. But people were surprised that I dared to sing, "she said.

The songs were put on cassettes that were often played in taxis and in teahouses. In this way she became a national celebrity.

In 1972 she recorded her own record in a studio in Addis Ababa. Two years later, during a coup, Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed. The new military leader Mengistu started a reign of terror. Tsehaytu Beraki joined the resistance movement ELF and exchanged her krar for a Kalashnikov.

A year later she was seriously injured in a bombing. When ELF seemed defeated, she had to swerve and settled in exile in Sudan.

In 1988 she received asylum in the Netherlands and acquired a Dutch passport. Terrie Hessels, of the band The Ex, who emerged from the squat movement, recognized her qualities and managed to persuade her to perform again. "She was a very strong personality," says Hessels.

He built a new box for her and started recording her large repertoire of blues-like ballads. It resulted in double CD Selam on Terrie's own label Terp Records in Wormer. "Her powerful, sometimes disarmingly girlish voice seems completely separate from her age," de Volkskrant wrote. Performances followed.

Eritrea became independent in 1993. But the violence remained. It would take until 1999 before she went back for the first time, with Emma Fischer, Terries partner, who captured the whole film for a VPRO documentary. Hessels: 'Tsehaytu was still a big celebrity there. The authorities looked suspiciously at her and she did not like that. She then went back only once. "

She had another son. But according to Hessels she had hardly any contact with it. 'Fortunately, she had some family members in Rotterdam who took care of her.'

Tsehaytu Beraki (1939-2018) bracht haar krarmuziek mee naar ...