Man first started chipping away at the iron ore of Ngwenya mountain over 43,000 years ago, history says. The San people also extracted red ochre from the site and used it in rock paintings, which are common in Swaziland. Two other mine sites in the area were destroyed when in 1964, the Swaziland Iron Ore Development Company (SIODC) carried out an open cast mining of Ngwenya mine. Even though there was a new commercial venture to revive the site, it did not materialize as the world price of iron ore had slumped at the time. An estimated 20,000,000 tonnes of iron ore have been extracted from the mine.

Source: The North Africa Journal May 27, 2018 09:33 UTC