Yekepa is a town in northern

Nimba County Nimba County is a county in northeastern Liberia that shares borders with the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire in the East and the Republic of Guinea in the Northwest. Its capital city is Sanniquellie and its most populous city is Ganta. With the count ...

Liberia Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean ...

, lying near the

Guinea Guinea ( ),, fuf, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫, italic=no, Gine, wo, Gine, nqo, ߖߌ߬ߣߍ߫, bm, Gine officially the Republic of Guinea (french: République de Guinée), is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the we ...

border Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders c ...

. It was the base for Lamco's

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the fo ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

operation until it was destroyed in the

First Liberian Civil War The First Liberian Civil War lasted from 1989 to 1997. President Samuel Doe had established a regime in 1980 but totalitarianism and corruption led to unpopularity and the withdrawal of support from the United States by the late 1980s. The Nat ...

which lasted from 1989 to 1997. Nearby

Guesthouse Hill A guest house (also guesthouse) is a kind of lodging. In some parts of the world (such as the Caribbean), guest houses are a type of inexpensive hotel-like lodging. In others, it is a private home that has been converted for the exclusive use o ...

is one of the highest points in the nation. The community is home to the African Bible College University. Despite some controversy, international steel company

Arcelor Mittal ArcelorMittal S.A. is a Luxembourgian multinational steel manufacturing corporation headquartered in Luxembourg City. It was formed in 2006 from the takeover and merger of Arcelor by Indian-owned Mittal Steel. ArcelorMittal is the second larg ...

was given approval to begin restoring the once prosperous mining town in May 2007. The reconstruction was to include a hospital, schools and other facilities for the township. However, due to fluctuations in world iron prices, much of the redevelopment never happened, and less than a decade later, much of the site had been abandoned once again.

References

External links

The Yekepa Memory Project

Yekepa Liberia video playlist
''YouTube'' Populated places in Liberia Nimba County {{Liberia-geo-stub