Hafun, Puntland - 1920s
The bombardment of Hafun Fort by Italian forces.
Posts tagged hafun
Hafun (Xaafuun), Puntland - 1928
Coastal Puntland - 1880 (Part 2)
The above are illustrations by a French explorer who visited several coastal towns and villages in the “Cape of Spices” (the north-eastern tip of Africa).
Soon after the First World War, the Italians realized that the shallow bay of Hafun, which had a long, low beach along the mainland side, was a perfect place for a large salt works. The Società Saline e Industrie della Somalia Settentrionale built on both sides of the peninsula of Ras Hafun ( Hafun and Hurdiyo) what would be the largest salt-works in the world. The firm, constituted in Milan in 1922, built a town for 5,000 inhabitants called Dante. Construction began in 1922 and was completed by 1929. In 1931, production began at the salt factory and soon the enterprise at Ras Hafun was exporting by sea over three hundred thousand tons of salt a year for industrial use. In 1941, during World War II, the British, who had lost British Somaliland to an Italian attack, sent north into Somalia from Kenya an expeditionary force that captured all of Italian East Africa and in the process destroyed the salt works.
A video from 1933 of the salt works of Hafun ( the first capital of Italian Somaliland).
Hafun (Xaafuun), Puntland.
Hafun is a 40 km long low-lying peninsula in the northeastern Bari region of Puntland. Many of its residents are fishermen who rely on their daily catch for sustenance.
Hafun, Puntland:
Once the bustling capital of Italian Somaliland, it bears the scars of the World War 2 battle in which the British bombed and seized the town from Mussolini’s forces. The town was flattened once again by the deadly tsunami wave of 2004.
