Akjoujt

Akjoujt, Arabic أكجوجت, DMG Akǧauǧat, formerly Fort Repoux, is the main town and the only town in the administrative region Inchiri in Mauritania. In the second half of the 20th century copper and later gold were mined in the settlement applied for this purpose initially.

Location

Akjoujt is located at about 120 meters above sea level in a flat, firm and almost barren sand plain, which belongs to the western part of the Sahara. The place is surrounded by some up to 500 meters high cone- shaped island mountains ( Guelb ). As the only station on the asphalt road between Atar, which lies 195 kilometers north-west, and the state capital Nouakchott, 256 kilometers south-east, Akjoujt serves as a resting place for travelers. The road runs in the main direction of several successive hill ranges on both sides of the plane. Fossil water, which is present in about 110 kilometers southwest oasis located Benichab in 90 feet of water, supplied through a line Akjoujt with drinking water. The daytime temperatures in June, just before the summer rainy season to 45 to 50 ° C, only at the turn of the maximum values ​​remain during the day just below 30 ° C.

Mining and townscape

The copper deposits of the region were already known in the Middle Ages, 1940, they were discovered by geologists. During the French colonial period here was a Fort Repoux called garrison. A settlement was established in 1970, when the mining company Société Minière de Mauritanie ( SOMIMA ) began with the removal of single copper ores in the country in the immediate vicinity. A copper mine is located on Guelb Moghrein, a hill five kilometers north of the town. In 1975, the company was nationalized, due to lack of profitability of the mining was stopped in May 1978, and some of the residents migrated. One reason was the steady decline since 1974 copper price on the world market.

Later, other companies tried to reactivate the mining of ore. Those from 1980 to 1983, the Société Arabe des Mines de Inchiri ( SAMIN ) without production result. Between 1992 and 1996 a company prospected ( the MORAK Consortium consisting of SAMIN, General Gold Resources NL and the International Finance Corporation IFC) in the old copper mining area for gold.

A new attempt has been making 2004/2005, the Canadian company First Quantum Minerals, which acquired a concession to both mine copper and gold in the mines. The Guelb Moghrein ore in 2009 had a copper content of 1.6 percent. This year, the yield was 36,608 tonnes of copper and 93,352 ounces of gold. To this had to be funded 2.74 million tonnes of ore with three times the amount of overburden. In December 2009, the Company estimated the remaining discharge time at 7 ½ years.

The 2000 census showed a population of 7904th Along the main street there are at least a gas station, simple grocery stores and several resting places for travelers. These are overshadowed with tin roofs, slabs, which are equipped with mattresses. Here tea and grilled meats are offered. The almost exclusively single-storey residential buildings with one or two rooms open out to a courtyard, which is surrounded by a high wall.

The runway with the IATA code AJJ is not served regularly.

Sons and daughters of the town

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