Suakin

Suakin was a coral-built Red Sea port in Beja country. In 1332 Ibn Battuta found it ruled by Zayd ibn Abi Numayy, son of a Meccan sharif; it had submitted to the Mamluk sultans in 1317.

As Mamluk power waned the Hedareb took Suakin. After Aydhab was destroyed in 1426, it became the foremost port of north-east Africa. The Ottomans occupied it in the 1550s and made it the seat of the Habesh pashalik. The Cape route brought decline, and by the early nineteenth century much of the coral city lay in ruins.