Cassinga
| Cassinga | |||
|---|---|---|---|
|
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| Coordinates | 15 ° 7 ′ S , 16 ° 5 ′ E | ||
| Basic data | |||
| Country | Angola | ||
| Huíla | |||
| Município | Jamba | ||
| ISO 3166-2 | AO-HUI | ||
| Comuna | Cassinga | ||
Cassinga (also Kassinga ) is a former city in the Huíla Province in southern Angola .
history
Cassinga arose as a home for the employees of iron ore - mine . It was set up by the Portuguese colonial rulers with the help of the German company Krupp . To ship the ore, a terminal was built in Saco Bay twelve kilometers north of Moçâmedes in 1966/67 , to which the material mined by the Compania Mineira do Lobito (CML) was transported. Krupp took care of the construction of the mine and a 300-kilometer rail link . The port was built by a Portuguese-Danish company (SETH / Hojgaard & Schultz). The ore terminal was built within a year and the first 250,000-ton freighter was handled as early as 1967. After Angola's independence from Portugal in 1975, the mining facilities and the city of Cassinga were abandoned with the beginning of the Angolan civil war (1975-2002), also because of a drop in world market prices.
On May 4, 1978, the Cassinga massacre took place in the town , a South African airborne attack on a SWAPO training and refugee camp , which is remembered annually in Namibia on Cassinga Day .
In the 2000s there was Japanese interest in reopening the mine and creating a rail link to Walvis Bay via Oshikango on Namibia's northern border. Nothing is known about a specification of these intentions.
administration
Cassinga is the seat of a municipality of the same name (Comuna) in the district ( Município ) of Jamba , in the province of Huíla .
Web links
- Cassinga on fallingrain.com (English)
- Angolan iron ore mines on mbendi.com (English)
- Cassinga - May 4, 1978 (English)