Kufra Airport
Kufra Airport (IATA: AKF, ICAO: HLKF) is an airport in Kufra, southeastern Libya.
History
Kufra Airport began as Buma Airfield, built in the 1930s as a minor facility by the Italians. In early World War II, it provided an air link to Italian East Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Italian Somaliland). It was captured by Free French units under General Leclerc on 1 March 1941 along with Kufra Oasis.
In April 1942 a detachment of Squadron 16 of the South African Air Force with three Bristol Blenheim Mk. IV aircraft was ordered to Kufra under the command of Major J.L.V. de Wet to strengthen the garrison air defences. On the morning of 4 May 1942 the three aircraft took off on a familiarization mission. They became lost and landed about 150 kilometres North East of Kufra. A sandstorm thwarted ground and air search parties, and by the time the lost aircraft were located on 11 May only one of the total 12-man crew was alive.
On 26 August 2008, a hijacked Sudanese Boeing 737 landed at Kufra Airport after having departed at Nyala Airport, Darfur, with destination Khartoum. Earlier, Egyptian authorities had refused the plane to land in their national capital, Cairo.
Kufra
Kufra (/ˈkuːfrə/) is a basin and oasis group in the Kufra District of southeastern Cyrenaica in Libya. At the end of nineteenth century Kufra became the center and holy place of the Senussi order. It also played a minor role in the Western Desert Campaign of World War II.
It is located in a particularly isolated area, not only because it is in the middle of the Sahara Desert but also because it is surrounded on three sides by depressions which make it dominate the passage in east-west land traffic across the desert. For the colonial Italians, it was also important as a station on the north-south air traffic to Italian East Africa. These factors, along with Kufra's dominance of the southeastern Cyrenaica region of Libya, explains the oasis' strategic importance and why it was a point of conflict during World War II.
Etymology
The word Kufra comes from the Arabic word kafir, the Arabic term for non-Muslims (often translated as "infidels", literally "those who conceal [the truth]") with reference to the Toubou people native to the region.
Podcasts:
