BOU CRAA

'Bou Craa (Bo Craa, Bu Craa, Boukra)' is a town in the Saguia el-Hamra region of northern Western Sahara, south and slightly east of the city of El Aaiún. It is inhabited almost entirely by employees of the Moroccan-controlled Bou Craa phosphate industry. During the Spanish colonization of the area (see Spanish Sahara) time, many early recruits of the nationalist movements Harakat Tahrir and Front Polisario were Sahrawi workers in the phosphate mines.
The phosphates are transported to the coast by an automated conveyor belt, the longest such belt in the world. This transportation system was vandalized and disabled several times by the Front Polisario, during the war that happened between the Moroccan Royal Army and the Polisario Front from 1976. These attacks gradually ceased after the town was enclosed in the early 1980s by the Moroccan Wall, and the town is presently under Moroccan control.

Contents

Satellite images

Satellite images

(Google maps)

★ Low resolution view of the conveyor belt to the port at Laayoune-Plage. Its location can be seen from the line of windswept sand accumulating on its south-western side.

★ The mines and tailings

★ the start of the conveyor belt at the mine