Likasi

Province

Likasi ( until 1966 Jadotville ) is a town in the district of Haut- Katanga Democratic Republic of Congo with 422 726 inhabitants (as of 1 January 2005).

Geography

Likasi located in the southeast of the country in the province of Katanga. In the region there are the Mitumba Mountains and the Kundelungu mountains.

Economy

The city is regarded as a transportation hub. Nearby Shinkolobwe where the official long since abandoned mine is located, from which the United States uranium based on the 1945 atomic bombs dropped on Japan is. The mine was flooded during the Cold War before independence from Belgium and the entrances sealed with concrete. After the departure of Mobutu Sese Seko's soldiers in 1997 illegal miners began to mine especially after high grade copper and cobalt, which is exported via negotiators to Zambia. Since 2004, the mine is guarded by the Presidential Joseph Kabila, which leave the prospector for a fee further carry out their work.

History

The city Likasi was called by the colonial masters from 1943 after the Belgian engineer Jean Jadot Jadotville or Flemish Jadotstad. In 1966 she was changed back to the factory within the limits set by the dictator Mobutu " Africanization " in " Likasi ".

In the region there have been ethnic tensions between the ethnic groups. During the crisis, the Katanga secession in 1961 here had to surrender a company of Irish UN troops in front of a numerically far inferior, led by white mercenaries unit of the Katanga Army of the Prime Minister Tshombe.

Coat of arms

Blazon:

Currency: Aere laboraque ( by copper and labor)

Credentials

• Place in the Democratic Republic of Congo
• Katanga ( province )
• Place in Africa