Kombat (''the place of the giraffe'') is a mine and its associated settlement at the southern margin of the Otavi Mountain Range in northern

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

. It is situated East of

Otavi Otavi is a town of 4,000 inhabitants in the Otjozondjupa Region of central Namibia. Situated 360 km north of Windhoek, it is the district capital of the Otavi electoral constituency. Geography The towns of Otavi, Tsumeb (to the north) and Gro ...

on the B8 to Grootfontein. Kombat at its peak had over 1,000 inhabitants. it is almost abandoned, although ''Kombat Primary School'' still operates at reduced capacity, and a clinic is serving the remaining inhabitants. In the vicinity, Welwitchia Health Training Center brought life to the known ghost town of Kombat. It offers Bachelors of Nursing Science program, Enrolled Nursing Science and Midwifery as well as Bachelor of Information and Communication Technology. There are also recreational facilities such as Kombat Lodge where visitors and people of the town can enjoy themselves.

Kombat mine

Minerals were discovered near Kombat in 1850. Around the year 1900, Kombat Mine was opened to extract copper. It was operated by ''Tsumeb Corporation Limited'' until the 1970s and by ''Ongopolo Mining'' as from 1999. In 2006 Ongopolo and the mine were taken over by

Weatherly International Weatherly International plc is a British mining company which owns several copper mines in Namibia. Its operations include the Matchless mine, Otjihase mine, Kombat mine, and Tschudi mine. In 2006, Weatherly acquired the operations of ''Ongopol ...

PLC, a mining house based in London. Soon thereafter in 2007 the mine flooded, was abandoned, and was dormant for several years. In 2015 Namibian businessman

Knowledge Katti Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinct ...

acquired the town and the mine for 50 million N$, allegedly with the intention of re-selling it to the Namibian government at a handsome profit. In November 2021, the Canada-based ''Trigon metals, Inc'' announced it had secured $5 million in financing from IXM to reopen the Kombat mine, agreeing to sell concentrate from the mine to IXM for distribution. Mining resumed the next month. Nambulite-136231

Besides copper, there are sizeable deposits of lead and silver. The mine is known for a host of rare minerals, including

glaucochroite Glaucochroite is a calcium manganese nesosilicate mineral with formula . It occurs in metamorphosed limestones. It was first described in 1899 in Franklin Furnace, Sussex County, New Jersey Sussex County is the northernmost county in the Sta ...

.
File:Carbonate rocks near Kombat, Namibia (2014).jpg, Carbonate rocks at ''Kombat'' (2014)

References

Populated places in the Otjozondjupa Region Copper mines in Namibia Populated places established in 1900 1900 establishments in German South West Africa Mining communities in Africa {{Namibia-geo-stub