Fight in Dr Kongo: Over 3,000 dead in 2 weeks - the role of your cell phone

Fight in Dr Kongo: Over 3,000 dead in 2 weeks - the role of your cell phone

A rebeling group has announced the conquest of another mining city in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), just a little more than a week after taking control of the largest city in the region, Goma.

violent clashes and their consequences

Conflicts between the alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC) rebel group and Congolese armed forces have asked for more than 3,000 lives in less than two weeks. The AFC, which includes the armed group M23, which specifies to defend the interests of the Rwandic-speaking minorities, last week the resource-rich city of Nyabibwe, after Goma, the provincial capital of North-Kivu, fell on January 27th

mineral wealth and poverty

These developments come less than a year after the rebels conquered Rubaya, a mining location in the east of the country, which houses one of the largest occurrence of Coltan, a valuable mineral that is used in smartphone production. The DRC, a central African country with more than 100 million inhabitants, has been fighting brutal militia for decades, including ethnic and resource -related armed rebellions of M23 and numerous other armed groups.

raw materials and violent conflicts

The conflict is strongly determined by access to natural resources. As the analyst Jean Pierre Okenda states, the areas occupied by the rebels are often mined areas. "There is no coincidence that the zones that are controlled by the rebels are mined areas," said Okenda and added that global demand for cobalt and Coltan has heated up the crisis.

financing of the rebels

Control over these raw materials finances war. Victor Tesongo, a spokesman for the AFC-M23 rebel alliance, confirmed that the group has control over the mineral-rich mines in Rubaya and Nyabibwe, but omitted information about how much money they are drawn from and what it is spent on. UN representative Bintou Keita pointed out that Coltan trading from the mines in Rubaya delivers over 15 percent of global tantalum production and generates an estimated $ 300,000 per month for M23.

raw materials in the international market

A large part of the international community, including the Congolese government, has accused Rwanda of supporting M23 and helping to rob the DRC minerals. According to the UN experts, an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 Rwandic soldiers monitor the M23 fighters in the eastern DRC, which exceeds the rebel forces.

smuggling and international economic relationships

In 2022, the US Ministry of Finance found that over 90% of the Congolese gold "are particularly smuggled into the regional states such as Uganda and Rwanda", where it is "processed and exported in international markets, especially in the VAE".

dispute over responsibility

DRC sued Apple in Belgium and France and accused the company of obtaining conflict minerals. Apple rejected the allegations. Every year, technologies such as Apple and Microsoft publish reports in which they request responsible sources of supply for minerals from their suppliers.

The search for solutions

The DRC minerals have proven to be a “curse”, as Analyst Okenda explains. "These resources create wars and rebellions, expose the local population and lead to serious ecological problems." While regional and global leaders are thinking about solutions to terminate the crisis, Okenda believes that the Congolese government has to reinvent itself in order to achieve continuing peace.