DR Congo: In the Rubaya mine, coltan extraction in the shadow of guns
By Vivien Latour , special correspondent in Rubaya (Democratic Republic of Congo)
Published on
Every day, many men, often very young, sink up to 70 or even 100 meters into the depths of the earth of North Kivu. Vivien Latour
Located in the North Kivu province of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the Rubaya artisanal mine has been in the hands of M23 rebels since early May. Thousands of miners extract coltan, a precious mineral found in phones and laptops.
Not far from Saké, about twenty kilometers from Goma, the main city in North Kivu, trucks struggle to extract themselves from a muddy road. A little further on, a car belonging to the NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) remains stuck in the middle of the road. Only motorcyclists laden with cargo manage to move unevenly along this road, riddled with potholes and waterlogged during this rainy season. "It takes more than six hours to travel the 60 kilometers that separate Goma from Rubaya and its mines," warned Lawrence Kanyuka, spokesperson for the AFC- M23, the rebel group that now controls the Kivus in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and de facto its mines, a few days earlier. He was not wrong.
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