Habiba Msika

Habiba Msika, also spelled Messika (حبيبة مسيكة), (born 1903 Testour – February 21, 1930 Tunis), was a Tunisian singer, dancer and actress.

Prototype of the free, and master of her destiny, charismatic singer and daring actress, adored by the Tunisian population, Msika was a social phenomenon in her time.

She learned to read and write in the school of the Israelite Alliance, which she left after seven years, through the help of her aunt, singing lessons, music theory and classical Arabic with the famous composer Khemaïs Tarnane and Egyptian tenor Hassan Bannan.

In 1920 her career took off; she became a sex symbol and initiated the phenomenon of "soldiers of the night", the nickname for her fans, mostly young dandies of Tunisia.

On the morning of February 20, 1930, an obsessive fan, an older man named Eliyahu Mimouni entered her apartment in Alfred Durand-Claye street in Tunis and set her on fire.

Habiba Msika's tomb in the cemetery of Borgel