By taking control of Rubaya in North Kivu, the M23 now has its hands on one of the richest coltan deposits in the world, whose production is estimated to account for 15% of the world’s supply and half of Congolese exports.

The ore – from which tantalum is made – is used to manufacture the capacitors used in most smartphones and computers. The armed group has thus taken over a site as strategic as it is profitable.

Since it took over the mining town on 30 April, the M23 has controlled “the monthly trade and transport of 120 tonnes of coltan, earning at least $800,000 a month” by imposing taxes on miners and traders, according to the latest report by the United Nations Group of Experts on the situation in eastern DRC, published 7 January.

Supported by testimonies, satellite images and documents, the UN report shows how some of the precious metal extracted from the Rubaya mine is then exported to Rwanda, where it is mixed with national production. The experts believe that this setup constitutes “the greatest contamination ever recorded of mineral supply chains in the Great Lakes region”.

‘$800,000 a month’

The report also says that it can “attest to” the involvement of the Rwandan authorities, both through military support for the M23 and through this smuggling, which it says is a de facto benefit for Rwanda’s economy. Rwandan President Paul Kagame has continually refuted these accusations. At a press conference on 7 January, at which he commented on several points made in the UN report, the Rwandan head of state said the “theft of minerals” was “an imaginary problem”.

He also said the report did not dwell sufficiently on the presence of the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), an armed group founded by former leaders of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, who are fighting the M23 alongside the Congolese army and its auxiliary Wazalendo militias.

 

Nonetheless, the report argues that the capture of Rubaya would not have been possible without the military aid provided by Rwanda to the M23, claiming in particular that “3,000 to 4,000 Rwandan soldiers” are actively fighting alongside the rebels.

For the UN experts, the Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) have effectively participated in the expansion of the armed group’s operating area over several years, which increased by 30% between April and November 2024. All these assertions have been refuted by the authorities in Kigali.

The coltan present at the Rubaya site has been the subject of intense and violent trafficking since the arrival of the M23, at all levels of a chain involving multiple players, from armed groups to private companies. The story of this deposit is a spectacular illustration of the flaws in the mechanisms put in place to ensure traceability and combat the trade in “blood minerals”, and in particular the International Tin Supply Chain Initiative (ITSCI).

This traceability system, the most widespread in the mining sector worldwide, is supposed to guarantee that the minerals have not been mined by children, pregnant women, or in the context of violence. However, the NGO Global Witness revealed in a report published in 2022 that it has also been used to launder large quantities of “blood coltan”.

Most of the coltan mined in North Kivu comes from one concession: PE 4731. This is surrounded by another concession, PE 76, which is much larger but also much less productive. Despite its small size, PE 4731 is home to around 10 mines, most of them small-scale. One of the most prolific is D4 Gakombe. Experts estimate that 1,000 tonnes of coltan are extracted from the area annually.

Historically held by the Société aurifère du Kivu et du Maniema (SAKIMA), the PE 4731 mining licence was awarded in the 2000s to Société minière de Bisunzu (SMB), headed by Congolese senator Édouard Mwangachuchu Hizi. In 2013, the company authorised Cooperamma, a local group of artisanal miners, to operate the mines in exchange for a monopoly on the purchase and sale of coltan.

That same year, a collapse in one of the mines killed 100 people. Since then, a dozen fatal accidents and abuses have been documented, including the use of child labour.

The collaboration between the Cooperamma miners and the SMB, which imposes quasi-military surveillance of the site, is not going well. In 2018, the SMB left the ITSCI traceability system, resulting in hundreds of tonnes of ore being blocked at the storage site. The situation at the site deteriorated to the point where armed clashes broke out.

Production statistics then fell sharply, whereas those for the neighbouring concession, PE76, operated by Sakima, began to rise. Evidence suggests that SMB’s coltan shipments were illegally transiting to PE76, where they may have been labelled by ITSCI. International NGO Global Witness repeatedly reported on this fraudulent mineral laundering scheme.

In early 2023, with the M23 drawing dangerously close to the region, the Congolese government ordered the mine to cease operations. On 1 March 2023, Hizi was arrested for “treason” and “undermining state security”. The authorities suspected him of having formed a private militia and of having provided logistical and financial support to the M23 rebels. Found guilty of these charges, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in October 2023.

Although officially suspended, mining activity at Rubaya never really stopped. A Wazalendo group allied to the Congolese army (FARDC) in the fight against the M23 quickly took control of the area: the Coalition des Patriotes Résistants Congolais – Force de Frappe (PARECO-FF).

For a year, from April 2023 to April 2024, this armed group “supervised” local mining, demanding “taxes” and imposing even harsher working conditions on the miners than those they had previously endured.

An unlikely alliance

That year would also see the emergence of an unlikely alliance between the PARECO-FF allied with the FARDC and the M23 rebels the Congolese army was fighting against. Some of the coltan shipments continued to transit via the neighbouring concession.

Another part of the production was channeled to Rwanda, thanks to what a previous report by the UN group of experts called an “opportunistic collaboration with the M23”, which by then controlled the smuggling routes to Rwanda. In 2023, Rwanda recorded an unprecedented rise in coltan exports, with an increase of 50% compared to 2022.

Since taking Rubaya, the M23 has set up a parallel administration. A “ministry” issues permits to miners and economic operators, marked “Democratic Republic of Congo – North Kivu Province”, in exchange for an annual fee and the payment of “taxes”. The miners’ salaries have reportedly been doubled to encourage them not to flee the area.

In the town and on the mining sites, the rebels patrol to ensure the minerals are only sold to operators “authorised” by the group, whether Congolese or Rwandan. If these obligations are not respected, “offenders” are arrested and detained in Mushaki.

From mid-May 2023 to the end of October, according to the testimonies gathered by the UN group of experts, convoys made two rotations a week. Each time, they were made up of four to five vehicles capable of carrying up to five tonnes per journey. The M23 has also imposed salongo (Lingala for forced labour) on the people living in the areas controlled by the group to widen the roads between Rubaya and Kirolirwe, and between Kibumba and Kabuhanga, on the DRC-Rwanda border, thereby allowing their trucks to pass.

The satellite images produced in the report show that mineral shipments were unloaded at a car park in Kibumba before being loaded onto larger trucks from Rwanda.