AFRICA LAW & JUSTICE

DR CONGO COBALT, COPPER MINING FOR RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES LEADING TO HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES- AMNESTY

DR CONGO COBALT, COPPER MINING FOR RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES LEADING TO HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES- AMNESTY
Spread the love

Faith Nyasuguta 

Amnesty International has accused multinationals of forced evictions, threats, intimidation and deception against local people at cobalt and copper mining sites in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

In a report published Tuesday and dubbed “Fuelling change or the status quo?”, Amnesty and the DRC-based Initiative for Good Governance and Human Rights looked into the human rights impact of four projects in the Kolwezi mining region, south-east of the DRC (Kolwezi Copper and Cobalt Mine, Mutoshi Mine, Metalkol RTR and Kamoa-Kakula Mine).

The duo believes that the race to enlarge these mining operations has led to the enforced eviction of populations from their homes and fields.

These evictions, “carried out when companies seek to expand industrial mines (…), destroy lives and must stop immediately”,  Agnès Callamard, the Secretary General of Amnesty International directed.

In lieu of benefiting from the growth of the mining sector, people living in the Kolwezi region “are being forced to leave their homes and farmland to make way for the expansion of large-scale industrial mining projects“, according to the report.

These evictions are often executed by “mining operators who have little regard for the rights of the populations concerned and equally little respect for national laws designed to limit forced evictions linked to the mining sector“.

Whole villages have been destroyed, like that of Mukumbi, says the report.

The whole village was burnt down, nothing was salvaged. No one had any money left. We had nothing to survive on. We spent nights and nights in the bush,” Kanini Maska, a former resident, told Amnesty.

“This eviction shattered my dreams (…), I lost everything and I live permanently with the fear of losing everything, even if I were to settle down again somewhere,” explained Papy Mpanga, another former inhabitant of the village.

Currently, the DRC is Africa’s largest mining producer and supplies over 70% of the world’s cobalt, a crucial metal for batteries used in electronics and electric cars.

Amnesty International recognizes the significance of rechargeable batteries in the energy transition. However, writes the NGO, “decarbonizing the global economy must not lead to new human rights abuses“.

RELATED:

FOREIGN TRAWLERS DESTROYING FISHING IN AFRICA

About Author

Faith Nyasuguta

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Women wash ore in the artisanal copper-cobalt mine of Kamilombe, near the city of Kolwezi, in southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, on June 20, 2023. The Democratic Republic of Congo produces over 70 percent of the global supply of cobalt. The metal is a critical component of batteries and seen as key to the renewable energy transition. Most of the central African country’s cobalt is produced by industrial mines, but the it also has hundreds of thousands of informal diggers who toil in hazardous conditions. (Photo by Emmet LIVINGSTONE / AFP)