More than 200 people died this Wednesday in the northeast after the collapse of a coltan mine. The accident occurred at dawn after heavy rains caused a landslide and the collapse of the hill where one of the Rubaya mines was located, Lumumba Kamberee Muyisa, spokesperson for the governor of the province of , where the mine is located, told Reuters on Friday. The majority of the deceased are artisanal miners, among whom there are children and women who sold in the nearby market. In addition, 20 people were injured.
“We are in the rainy season. The soil is fragile. The ground gave way while the victims were in the hole,” said Muyisa. The mine is located about 50 kilometers northwest of Goma, capital of North Kivu. Bahati Musanga Eraston, governor appointed by those who occupy a good part of this province, went to the site of the collapse to express his solidarity with the victims, order the evacuation of the houses that are in the risk zone and announce that he would assume the health expenses of the injured, which are distributed between the Rubaya health center and hospitals in Goma. The governor also decided to prohibit the access of pregnant women and children to these types of farms.
Surviving artisanal miners told the media that they had spent a “nightmarish 24 hours” and that, two days later, there were still many people, dead or alive, buried in the mine’s numerous shafts. These types of accidents are frequent in the DRC. On November 15, another 32 people died after a mine collapse in Kalando, in the province of Lualaba, in the southeast of the country.
The mine that was damaged this Wednesday is part of a group of deposits located near the town of Rubaya from which about a thousand metric tons of coltan are extracted per year, half of the production of the entire country and 15% of world production. Since April 2024, this immense mining site, where some 10,000 people work, most of them without security measures and many minors, has been under the control of the M23 rebels.
Much of the coltan extracted in Rubaya and in the mines under rebel control is illegally transported to neighboring Rwanda, as both the Congolese Government and the United Nations have denounced. “Evidence shows that there is a growing risk of cross-border fraud, as minerals from North Kivu, especially coltan from Rubaya controlled by the M23 militia, are being smuggled into Rwanda,” says a UN report published last summer.
This illicit trafficking of coltan, a mineral composed of columbite and tantalite, laptop computers and electric cars, represents an income of at least $800,000 per month for the M23, a Tutsi-majority rebel group that has the military and financial support of Rwanda in its war against the Congolese Army. “The smuggling of minerals from eastern DRC to the neighboring country, Rwanda, has already reached historic levels,” in his report prepared for the Security Council.
The conflict in northeastern Congo, which began three decades ago and behind which is precisely the control of strategic minerals such as coltan, intensified at the end of 2024 when the M23 rebels, with support from Rwanda, managed, months later, to take control of the cities of Goma and Bukavu, capitals of the provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu, respectively. One led to the signing of an agreement on December 4 between the Congolese and Rwandan presidents, Félix Tshisekedi and Paul Kagame, respectively. However, fighting has not stopped on the ground. In exchange for their mediation, Congo and Rwanda have agreed to facilitate access to their mining resources for American companies.
