Nakfa, , is a town in the

Northern Red Sea region The Northern Red Sea Region (, it, Regione del Mar Rosso Settentrionale, ) is an administrative region of Eritrea. It lies along the northern three quarters of the Red Sea, and includes the Dahlak Archipelago and the coastal city of Massawa. ...

Eritrea Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia ...

. It is also the name of a sub region of Eritrea.

History

Early history

The Nakfa area has been inhabited since ancient times and became an administrative and commercial centre in the 1890s when the Italian colonial government established a post there and grew steadily. In the 1960s, following the incorporation of Eritrea into Ethiopia, the construction of a police post and Mosque in the town was funded by the government of Emperor Haile Selasie. The police presence made it the target of early attacks by the

Eritrean Liberation Front ar, جبهة التحرير الإريترية it, Fronte di Liberazione Eritreo , war = the Ethiopian Civil War, Eritrean War of Independence and the Eritrean Civil Wars , image = , caption = Flag of the ELF ...

and led to the Ethiopians establishing a military garrison there in 1967.

Eritrean War of Independence

In 1977, after a six-month siege, the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front, EPLF, took Nakfa from the Ethiopians in its first major victory. For the next decade it was to serve as the major base of the EPLF and was subjected to eight, failed attempts by the Ethiopians to retake it, during which most of the town was destroyed, other than the mosque which served as a useful navigation beacon for Ethiopian bombers. The EPLF dug itself in underground where it built

hospital A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emerge ...

printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in wh ...

es,

factories A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. T ...

, a

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

and a

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering ...

and constructed rings of

trench A trench is a type of excavation or in the ground that is generally deeper than it is wide (as opposed to a wider gully, or ditch), and narrow compared with its length (as opposed to a simple hole or pit). In geology, trenches result from eros ...

es and

minefield A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automati ...

Post-Independence

After Eritrean independence in 1991 the town became the provincial capital of the Sahel Province and there was investment in reconstruction and an airstrip was built. However, in 1995, with the reorganisation of administrative regions it lost that status. It nevertheless remains an important regional centre.

National currency

Such is the symbolic importance of Nakfa to Eritrean liberation struggle that in the post liberation period the national currency, the nakfa, was named after the town in honour of the role it had played.Wrong M. Ibid. p287

Nakfa Sub-Region

Nakfa Subregion is a subregion in the Northern Red Sea Region of Eritrea. Its capital lies at Nakfa. The district contains the

Yob Wildlife Reserve Yob Wildlife Reserve is a protected area in the Northern Red Sea and Anseba regions of northern Eritrea Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of ...

, established in 1959.

Education

* Tsabra Senior Secondary School, Nakfa * Winna Technical College, Nakfa. * Nakfa Primary School

Transportation in Nakfa

The road from Keren to Nakfa via Afabet is extremely narrow and the village van bulges with passengers. The people here are all tribal

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

s and they live in small stone huts. More important is the generator which is essential as this village has no electricity. A telephone is available in the village but it works on sunny days only as the power source is solar.

Climate

Nakfa has a

hot semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi-ar ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

''BSh'').

References

External links

Nak'fa, Eritrea
Northern Red Sea Region Populated places in Eritrea Archaeological sites in Eritrea {{Eritrea-geo-stub