Taoudenni
22.666666666667 - 3.9666666666667Koordinaten: 22 ° 40 'N, 3 ° 58 ' W
Taoudenni (or Taoudeni ) is a salt mine in a sebkha, a former salt lake in the Sahara desert, 700 km north of Timbuktu in Mali. She is known for her good rock salt.
History
After the conquest of the centuries- long used salt mine Taghaza through the figures extracted from Morocco Saadian the salt mine was in 1586, during the Songhai eich, opened in Taoudenni and operated by slaves. 1906 described a French camel corps ( Méharisten ) two paths from Timbuktu to Taoudenni. During the reign of Moussa Traoré, the Mine from 1969 to 1988 served as a prison camp for dissidents, many of whom did not survive the rigors of forced labor.
Extraction of the salt plates
Originally near the brackish water -giving fountain located at Ksar Smeïda, the salt production shifted in the direction of the hill Agorgot. Today there work in an extremely inhospitable and hostile place, supposedly free. However, mostly in bondage standing workers, and beat in the open pit with primitive hoes in up to 4 m deep pits from the rock salt plates in the size of about 125 cm x 50 cm. A adile called ingot weighs, ready trimmed, about 30 kg. Daily norm is the production of 4 disks per worker. Before the three good-quality rock salt layers - the deepest is the best (from their layer thickness and can be cut every two salt plates of the second best ) - are achieved, but a 1.50 m thick deck view of clay and some inferior salt layers must not be removed until. This means that the overburden represents almost forty times the volume of salable salt. Is a pit exploited, is - so that there are now a further dug, thousands - on an open area between the tailings hills. In the winter of 2007/2008 to about 1000 men who worked in teams of three in the pits - almost all of them leave after enduring October to April season Taoudenni degradation in the summer months.
Transport to Timbuktu
Traditionally, the salt plates, four were per dromedary, transported with a coming from Timbuktu, organized by members of the tribe of Kunta and referred to in Tamashek Azalai caravan to Timbuktu, which lasts twenty days. Nowadays increasingly trucks are used for transportation. In Timbuktu the salt plates on the Niger were shipped to the south of Mali.
Current situation
In 2006, geological surveys of the basin of Taoudenni have been completed and posted six exploration blocks in a semicircle south and southeast to Taoudenni for future oil production. Algerians and Italians (ENI ) were awarded the contract.
Central transport routes for drugs from South America for the European market move in that area.