Qualla: Bakouma https://qualla.com/bakouma en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:29 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/9/0/0/bakouma-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Bakouma https://qualla.com/bakouma Bakouma: Introduction https://qualla.com/bakouma/ Photo credit Public domain. In 1959, a survey team prospecting the Central African Republic found phosphatic sediments near Bakouma whose uranium content was, gram for gram, the highest in sub-Saharan Africa - nearly twenty times richer than the famous deposits at Trekkopje in Namibia. They estimated 41 million pounds of uranium oxide in the ground. Sixty-five years later, not a kilogram of Bakouma uranium has been commercially produced. The French tried. The Swiss tried. The Japanese tried. The Australians tried. The Chinese tried. The South Africans tried, hardest of all. Each in turn walked away. The uranium is still there. So, for now, is the town.

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/9/0/0/bakouma-wp/s900-bakouma-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Bakouma: A Belgian Military Post https://qualla.com/bakouma/ Photo credit Public domain. Bakouma was founded in September 1892, when a Belgian expedition under Commander Georges Adolphe Balat and Captain Georges Le Marinel set up a military post on the site of the present town. In July 1894 it became part of the French Upper Oubangui, then a district under French rul...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/9/0/0/bakouma-wp/s900-bakouma-a-belgian-military-post.mp3 0:06 2 full Bakouma: The Uranium That Will Not Be Mined https://qualla.com/bakouma/ Photo credit Public domain. The 1959-1961 French survey turned up the first evidence. The French Commissariat a l'energie atomique followed up. The Swiss company Alusuisse conducted small-scale mining in the 1970s. A Japanese team in the 1980s concluded that large-scale extraction was not commercially viabl...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/9/0/0/bakouma-wp/s900-bakouma-the-uranium-that-will-not-be-mined.mp3 0:06 3 full Bakouma: Jeanne-Marie Ruth-Rolland https://qualla.com/bakouma/ Photo credit Public domain. In the 1990s, a former political prisoner named Jeanne-Marie Ruth-Rolland was elected deputy leader of Bakouma. She led a gold prospectors' consortium and was active in diamond mining in the surrounding region. She had survived imprisonment during Jean-Bedel Bokassa's dictatorshi...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/9/0/0/bakouma-wp/s900-bakouma-jeanne-marie-ruth-rolland.mp3 0:06 4 full Bakouma: When the Rebels Came https://qualla.com/bakouma/ Photo credit Public domain. From December 2018 to January 2019, heavy clashes took place in Bakouma between ex-Seleka militias and government forces. The government prevailed, and the ex-Seleka withdrew. Two years later, on 26 December 2020 - one day before the Central African general election - three UN pe...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/9/0/0/bakouma-wp/s900-bakouma-when-the-rebels-came.mp3 0:06 5 full Bakouma: The Gboyo and the Forest https://qualla.com/bakouma/ Photo credit Public domain. Bakouma sits on the Gboyo River at the northern edge of the Mbomou forest, which covers some 10,000 square kilometres. The town is about 870 kilometres from Bangui, the capital. A small hydro-power plant on the left bank of the Gboyo, owned by the Catholic Diocese of Bangassou, g...

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]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/9/0/0/bakouma-wp/s900-bakouma-the-gboyo-and-the-forest.mp3 0:06 6 full