Nieuw-Koffiekamp is a village in the

resort A resort (North American English) is a self-contained commercial establishment that aims to provide most of a vacationer's needs. This includes food, drink, swimming, accommodation, sports, entertainment and shopping, on the premises. A hotel ...

Brownsweg Brownsweg is a town and resort in Suriname in the Brokopondo District. Its population at the 2012 census was 4,793. History The town was named after the road that leads to the Brownsberg, and the Brownsberg Nature Park. It is situated near the B ...

in the

Brokopondo District Brokopondo is a district of Suriname. Its capital city is Brokopondo; other towns include Brownsweg and Kwakoegron. The district has a population of 15,909, and an area of 7,364 square kilometres. History The Brokopondo district was established ...

Suriname Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America, also considered as part of the Caribbean and the West Indies. It is a developing country with a Human Development Index, high level of human development; i ...

. It is a transmigration village built for the inhabitants of Koffiekamp which was flooded by the

Brokopondo Reservoir The Brokopondo Reservoir, officially named Professor Doctor Ingenieur W. J. van Blommestein Meer, and also called the Brokopondostuwmeer, is a large reservoir in Suriname. It is named after the Surakarta-born Dutch hydrological engineer . With a ...

after the construction of the Afobaka Dam.

History

The transmigration village of Nieuw-Koffiekamp was founded in 1964, because the village of Koffiekamp was going to be flooded by the

. Koffiekamp was a federation of three settlements of the Ndyuka

maroons Maroons are descendants of Africans in the Americas and islands of the Indian Ocean who escaped from slavery, through flight or manumission, and formed their own settlements. They often mixed with Indigenous peoples, eventually evolving into ...

: Maipa-ondo of the Misidjan ''lo'' (clan) founded in 1793, Baka Mbuju of the Njanfai ''lo'', and Maria Hartmann founded Koffiekamp in 1851 as a mission of the

Moravian Church The Moravian Church, or the Moravian Brethren ( or ), formally the (Latin: "Unity of the Brethren"), is one of the oldest Protestant denominations in Christianity, dating back to the Bohemian Reformation of the 15th century and the original ...

. The population was estimated at 500 inhabitants.

Overview

Nieuw-Koffiekamp contains a school and a medical centre. It has access to the electricity grid. The village is connected to the road network. The number of inhabitants of the village varies greatly. The official figure in 2017 was 300, however the village council estimated the population at around 500.

Gold mining conflict

The economy is mainly based on gold mining. Most of the villagers used to work at the Roma Pit. In 1994 the concession was awarded to

Iamgold Iamgold Corporation (formerly Iamgold International African Mining Gold Corporation) is a Canadian company that owns and operates gold mining, gold mines in Burkina Faso and Canada. Headquartered in Toronto, the company was incorporated in 1990, ...

. In mid-2010, the company started to exploit the mine and removed the goldprospectors from the mine. The people were given a new area which contained significantly less gold. After protests, a contract was signed with Iamgold in 2017 which permitted the villagers to remain in the Roma Pit.

References

{{Authority control Populated places in Brokopondo District Maroon settlements