Bou Craa
Coordinates: 26 ° 19 ′ N , 12 ° 51 ′ W
Bou Craa , (also: Bu Craa , Boukraa ), Arabic أبوكراع, DMG abū krāʿ meaning father of the foot , is a mining town with 2519 inhabitants (2004) in the northern part of Western Sahara . The world's largest deposit of phosphate is located in the town belonging to the province of El Aaiun .
Bou Craa is 100 kilometers southeast of El Aaiún . Economically, the phosphate mining dominates in the place. The phosphate is transported over 100 kilometers to El Aaiun on the Atlantic coast on the world's longest conveyor belt .
The region's phosphate deposits were accidentally discovered in 1947 when Spanish geologist Manuel Alia Medina was evaluating rock samples to date the ages of Hammada formations. After he had found a 27 percent phosphate content, he was given the task of further investigation. In a laboratory set up in El Aaiun, he analyzed samples with 50–60 percent phosphate, a content worthwhile for mining. In 1962 the company Empresa Nacional Minera del Sáhara SA (ENMINSA) was founded, which estimated the phosphate deposits of Bou Craa to be up to 2000 million tons within an area of 1200 square kilometers. Five times this amount was estimated for the entire region.
At the end of 1972 the group, which now operates with the participation of American, French and German companies, employed 1272 workers. 500 inhabitants lived in the village itself. From 1972 with the commissioning of modern plants, production was 2 to 3 million tons per year.
Like much of the Western Sahara, Bou Craa is also occupied by Morocco . During the military phase of the Western Sahara conflict from 1976 onwards, the conveyor belt was frequently attacked by troops from the Western Saharan liberation organization POLISARIO .
In Bou Craa there is a mosque , a shop and an administration building.
Web links
- Western Sahara: Bou Craa Phosphate Mine. BHP Billiton Watch, November 15, 2010
Individual evidence
- ↑ John Mercer: Spanish Sahara. George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London 1976, pp. 185f