![]() ![]() Seven years on, their stubborn presence is also frustrating to Glencore, which says it cannot fully develop its concession and that the illegal mine poses a safety risk. In 2015 came a shock: news of Shabara’s sale, and with it the expectation that the diggers would leave. This deal could be renounced only if both parties agreed, according to a copy of the agreement shared with the AFP news agency. In 2010, COMAKAT signed a deal with Shabara’s then-majority owners, Dino Steel, entitling them to keep exploiting the pit. The DRC mines ministry did not respond to questions. “It’s a mess,” admitted a senior government official in Kolwezi, the capital of Lualaba province, who said Kinshasa had decided the zones seemingly at random. Most diggers are refusing to move into the designated artisanal zones and EGC has yet to start buying cobalt. Today, though, efforts to clear up the illegal mines are at near standstill. “This was starting to create a real problem.” “Your Teslas, Samsungs and Apples had started to balk at cobalt,” said EGC’s compliance and environment director, Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, referring to the reputational cost of buying ore from the DRC. The idea was multi-pronged: develop the artisanal sector, boost standards, and profit from the trade. In 2019, as a storm over rights and working conditions mounted, it also established the state-owned Enterprise Generale du Cobalt (EGC), giving it a monopoly on buying and marketing artisanally produced ore from the designated zones. ![]() The country declared the metal “strategic” and hiked taxes on industrially produced cobalt. In 2018, the DRC enacted mining reforms aimed in part at strengthening control over the roaring cobalt trade. “We’re not going to give in,” said Michel Bizimungu Lungundu, the deputy of the COMAKAT, the highly organised cooperative at Shabara, arguing that locals had the right to exploit the lucrative ore. Many prefer to operate on industrial concessions where there are large, identified deposits, even though this can lead to a showdown with powerful multibillion-dollar corporations. Under Congolese law, artisanal diggers are only allowed to work in government-designated zones and as part of approved cooperatives.īut most diggers say the designated areas are unviable. “It’s the Wild West of mining,” said one industry analyst. ‘The Wild West of mining’Īccording to market specialist Darton Commodities, the DRC last year produced 72 percent of the world’s cobalt, a key ingredient in rechargeable batteries in electric cars and mobile phones.īut the sector’s image is tarnished by artisanal mining, where accusations of child labour, dangerous working conditions, and corruption are rampant. “We’re fighting to be left in peace,” he said. Marcel Kabamba, age 31, taking a break amid the sounds of clanging and the shouts of his fellow diggers, said he could make the equivalent of $200 on a good week – a small fortune in a country where most live on under $2 a day. Mining operations have been ongoing for years here in flagrant violation of the DRC’s laws and in defiance of the site’s owner, a subsidiary of mining and commodities giant Glencore.Īs the diggers gouge at blue-tinged soil, hundreds of dust-covered porters trudge up a ramp leading out of the pit, their backs bent under the weight of sacks of ore. In this scene of almost Biblical toil, the prize is cobalt – a strategic metal found in abundance in the central African nation.īut the huge pit in Shabara, about 45 kilometres (30 miles) from Kolwezi, is also a big headache.Ībout 20,000 people work at the mine, in shifts of 5,000 at a time. ![]() At the bottom of a crater in southeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, 5,000 diggers pack tightly together, swinging hammers and picks to prise chunks of speckled blue-gold ore from the earth. ![]()
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