Kinshasa: The Democratic Republic of Congo's government reported on Sunday its fears of "at least 200 dead" following a significant landslide that impacted a militia-controlled mine in the country's eastern region.
According to France24.com, the M23 armed group, which has been active since its resurgence in 2021, has taken control over large areas of the DRC's resource-abundant east, including the Rubaya mine in North Kivu province. This takeover occurred in April 2024 with assistance from Rwanda. Witnesses described a part of a hillside in the mining area collapsing on Wednesday afternoon, followed by another landslide on Thursday morning.
Eraston Bahati Musanga, the M23-appointed governor, conveyed to AFP that there were "at least 200 deaths" as a result of the landslide. However, AFP has not been able to independently confirm these figures. The region has experienced disruptions in the phone network for several days, and both Congolese authorities and civil society groups evacuated when the M23 forces arrived.
Information about the incident is slowly emerging through motorbike couriers traversing the area, making it challenging to ascertain an accurate casualty count, as noted by a humanitarian source. The Rubaya mine is a significant contributor to the global supply of coltan, essential for manufacturing electronics like laptops and mobile phones, accounting for 15 to 30 percent of world production.
Experts estimate that the M23 earns approximately $800,000 monthly from the mine, leveraging a seven-dollars-a-kilo tax on coltan production and sales. UN experts have accused Rwanda of utilizing the militia to exploit the DRC's mineral wealth, an allegation Rwanda denies. Kinshasa has called upon "the international community to fully grasp the scale of this tragedy," attributing it to "armed occupation and an organized system of looting" by the Rwanda-backed militia.
In addition to containing a significant portion of the world's coltan reserves, the broader eastern DRC also possesses extensive deposits of gold and tin.