The mine that funds Congo's rebels and feeds the tech industry

Under the watchful eyes of M23 rebels, in the hills surrounding the Congolese city of Rubaya a line men in rubber boot ferry sacks of crushed stones up winding paths cut in to the slopes.

Coltan, a mineral which powers modern technology, is being hauled by the workers. The ore is loaded onto motorbikes, and then shipped thousands of kilometers to Asia. The ore is then processed into tantalum - a heat resistant metal which fetches over $300 per kilogram. It's in demand by manufacturers of mobile phones and computers as well as aerospace components and gas engines.

Rubaya is responsible for 15% of all the coltan produced in the world. Coltan is mined by hand, and locals earn just a few dollars a day. The control of this mine is at the heart of a long-running war in this nation in central Africa.

M23, the rebel group backed by Rwanda's government, took over the area in April 2024. The heavily-armed M23 rebels, who claim to be fighting for the overthrow of the Kinshasa government and the safety of Congolese Tutsi minorities, have captured more mineral-rich land in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo this year.

M23 and DRC pledged to sign an agreement in Doha, Qatar, at a ceremony this month. The United States mediates parallel talks between Congo, Rwanda and a potential investment of billions in the event that hostilities end.

The United States Treasury sanctioned on Tuesday other alleged participants of minerals smuggling, including PARECO FF, a progovernment Congolese milita that the U.S. claimed controlled the Rubaya mine site from early 2024 to 2022, before M23 took over.

PARECO-FF was not available for comment.

A senior U.S. official was asked at a briefing by the press why Washington targeted PARECO-FF and not M23. He noted that sanctions have been placed on M23 since 2013 because it has fuelled conflict in the area.

John K. Hurley said that the Treasury Department would not hesitate to act against groups who deny the United States or our allies the access to critical minerals essential for our national security.

Jason Stearns is a former U.N. inspector in Congo. He said that the fact that M23 wasn't targeted by the new mining sanctions was surprising.

M23's advances pose the greatest threat to Kinshasa's government in the last two decades. The conflict stems from the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which around one million members of Rwanda's Tutsi group were killed by Hutu-led militias.

The Rwandan government has denied for years that it is involved in the trade of coltan, looted by its neighbor, or that it supports M23. Rwanda's ruling Tutsi majority party shares the same concern as M23 about the alleged threat of rival Hutu groups in eastern Congo. According to a U.N. document reviewed by the Associated Press on July 3, Rwanda had deployed between 1,000 and 1,500 troops into rebel-controlled Congo areas as of April.

M23 controls two important Congolese towns - Goma, and Bukavu on the Rwandan border. U.N. Investigators claim that Congolese minerals, which are often transported illegally to Rwanda through these cities, are mixed with Rwandan coltan before being exported.

M23, the Rwandan government and the Congolese government did not respond to comments. Congolese officials accuse Rwanda of fomenting conflict in order to plunder Congo’s mineral wealth.

A U.N. December report stated that the size of the trade increased after M23 captured Rubaya. U.N. report: The rebels established a parallel government that controlled mining, trade, transportation, and taxation on the minerals produced in Rubaya.

Reporters visited Rubaya, in March of this year. M23 officials told them that the rebels had levied a 15% tax on the coltan the mineral traders purchased from the informal miner's who worked the area. According to a U.N. report from December, M23 collected $800,000 per month from levies on coltan mined in eastern Congo.

MUD AND MOTORBIKES

Rubaya is a beehive of pits that are so vast and complex, it's a huge undertaking to reach them. Journalists who visited the mines in March were forced to abandon their Land Cruisers when they became stuck on a muddy road leading from Goma. The journalists walked for 5 km (3 miles) in order to get to the town, and then they hopped onto motorcycles with rebel officials so that they could reach the mines.

The activity in Rubaya starts before dawn when thousands of miner descend into the pits cut in the rolling hills of Congo’s North Kivu Province, where many work in 12-hour shifts.

Tunnels can reach a depth of up to 15 meters (49 feet). Porters transport the ore fragments to shallow basins filled with water dug by laborers. Other workers, including children and women, then wash and separate the ore from debris and sand before laying it out in the sun to dry.

The journalists were closely supervised by M23 personnel who were unarmed throughout their stay in the mining area. Reporters saw rebel officials jotting in a notebook the number of sacks that each porter, covered in fine white dust, carried to each collection point. Once the ore has dried, it's stacked onto motorbikes and transported to Rubaya where it is sold by traders.

Pascal Mugisha Nsabimana (32), a miner from Congo, was told by a M23 chaperone that it is better to work under rebel occupation than to labor under the supervision and control of the Congolese military or its allies who fled the area when M23 invaded the region last year.

In the past, "there was a lot of harassment, a lot of taxes and we, as diggers, often were not paid." The miner added that even when they did get paid, it was not enough. He said that under M23, his day rate has at least tripled.

According to over a dozen sources, including former and current smugglers as well as miners and businessmen, in the months immediately following the M23 takeover of Rubaya, Congolese troops remained along the border. Smugglers then used motorcycles to sneak ore into Rwanda by using backroads. According to two former smugglers, who transported coltan in this manner until last year, the journey could take a whole day. The two ex-smugglers said that they would load their bikes with three bags of 50 kilograms each time and receive about $34 per trip for delivering the coltan to traders.

Nine of these people stated that M23's changes have been a game changer for efficiency. Motorcycles are not the main means of transportation anymore, and they are only used to transport the coltan to Rubaya from the mine. According to the U.N. report and the people, ore is then loaded into SUVs, pickups, and other vehicles that can haul anywhere between two to twenty tons. It is also faster. Coltan trucks are now able to pass through Goma on paved roads, since M23 has taken control of the border city and driven Congolese forces out. This, according to people, has shortened transport times.

Experts at the United Nations and human rights activists warn that illegal mining profits are used to fund conflict. The trade, they say, has not brought much wealth to the locals and child labor is very common. At least 12 children were seen working in the Rubaya Mine: Boys entered the shafts and hauled out the ore, then carried it to basins where the girls washed and dried the coltan alongside the adults.

Gregory Mthembu Salter, former U.N. expert in Congo, who is now a consultant on conflict minerals said that efforts made by the mining industry and U.N. agencies, as well as non-government organisations, to clean the supply chain of the region and prevent human right abuses, which began around 2010, have failed.

Mthembu Salter, Phuzumoya Consulting's director, said: "The same thing has happened 15 years after."

U.S. INVESTORS LOOK AT RUBAYA RICHES

Some U.S. investors have also targeted Rubaya's riches in coltan as President Donald Trump tries to broker a deal to end conflict and promote the development of the mineral wealth of the region. These riches in Congo include cobalt reserves, gold, diamonds, copper, and lithium. The formal mining sector of the country is currently dominated by Chinese firms.

According to a source with direct knowledge, Texas hedge fund manager Gentry beach, who is the chairman of America First Global, and raised funds for Trump's 2016 election campaign, was part of a group that sought to negotiate the rights to Rubaya Mine. Gentry Beach's interest in Congo coltan was first reported by The Financial Times.

Sources told us that Beach's Group had proposed the Congolese Government to take a majority stake, while Kinshasa retained a 30% share.

Beach expressed his interest in a project but refused to give any additional details.

Some U.S. legislators are pushing back. In a letter sent to Trump and U.S. secretary of state Marco Rubio on August 8, more than 50 Democratic members of congress criticized the lack of transparency of the DRC negotiations by the Trump administration. The Democratic congress members also expressed concern about a possible conflict of interest if a Trump ally was angling to obtain rights to develop Rubaya Mine.

Anna Kelly, White House Deputy press secretary, said in an email statement dated 5 August that the agreement Trump arranged between Congo and Rwanda has the potential of leading to lasting peace in the region. The president's vision is a "win-win outcome where all parties benefit--economically and politically--through cooperation and shared prosperity," the statement said. She did not answer a question about the letter sent by congressional Democrats.

The U.S. State Department made no comment. In a statement released on August 1, the State Department stated that it would support efforts made by Rwanda to promote security and economic co-operation. According to the statement which didn't go into detail, heads of state will be invited to Washington soon for a summit.

The U.S.-backed agreement does not include the M23. The rebel group is a part of a parallel, separate mediation that Qatar has led to try and end hostilities. Success in the Doha talks is crucial to a lasting peace and to making Rubaya a safe place for Western mining interests.

Some analysts and diplomats are unsure about the chances of a quick resolution.

Congo and the M23 rebels agreed in Doha that a deal would be reached by August 18th. The U.N. says that the U.S. has a responsibility for the deaths of 319 civilians last month in eastern Congo.

Could not independently confirm these killings. M23 leader Bertrand Bisimwa said to the news agency that the group would investigate. He also suggested reports of atrocities were a "smear" campaign against the insurgent.

The U.S.-brokered agreement calls for Rwandan soldiers to withdraw from Congo. Last month, Rwandan President Paul Kagame stated that he wasn't sure if the agreement would stand.

Kagame stated that the Congo must first fulfill its promise to defeat the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, an ethnic Hutu group based in eastern Congo and linked to the Rwandan Genocide. Kigali views the FDLR as an existential danger.

Josaphat Muamba, a Congolese Ph.D. student at Ghent University, Belgium, said that suppressing the militias would be a difficult task for the DRC military, as it is not present in vast swathes M23-controlled land.

Musamba stated that it was difficult to neutralize FDLR while M23 were still in place and the Congolese Army had not been redeployed. He called both peace initiatives "piecemeal efforts" that don't deal with "the realities on the ground."

A senior diplomat, who closely follows the events in Rubaya, stated that another formidable task would be to transform Rubaya's crude system for coltan extraction.

The diplomat stated that "no one speaks about the feasibility of granting these mining concessions or running these concessions. Especially since the entire mine is artisanal" done almost exclusively by hand.

(source: Reuters)