From coltan to coal: natural resources and cycles of violence in Eastern DRC

On 3 March, heavy rains induced a landslide at Rubaya, the site of the DRC’s largest coltan mine, reportedly killing 200 people, including 70 children, according to official government sources. M23, who have controlled Rubaya since April 2024, countered government estimates and claimed only six had died. The recent disaster follows another landslide at Rubaya in January that claimed 226 lives.  

Conditions at Rubaya and the thousands upon thousands of mineral mines in eastern DRC have long been notorious: child exploitation is rife and the mines themselves physically precarious. Though the minerals produced by these mines are indispensable to multinationals like Apple, Tesla and Samsung, the artisanal miners who extract them see little material benefit.

A 15-year-old survivor of the 3 March landslide who lost his father in another in 2022 told Al Jazeera he now had “no choice” but to return to a job where he earns just $4 a day. Dangerous, exploitative and highly lucrative, the mineral trade in eastern DRC reveals that the interplay between violent conflict and the region’s abundant natural resources is never straightforward.

What is coltan and how does it relate to the ongoing conflict?

Essential to the manufacture of electronic components found in smartphones, laptops and electric car batteries, coltan, a highly heat resistant metal, is also used by defence and aviation industries in the production of turbine blades, missiles and GPS systems. Deposits at Rubaya account for 15% of global supply, and along with gold, tin and tungsten, coltan is one of the four so-called ‘conflict minerals’, all found in abundance beneath the soils and hillsides of eastern DRC.

The DRC’s rich natural resources have long been closely linked to cycles of violence that have wracked the country since Belgium’s colonial occupation, itself reliant on the violent extraction of commodities like rubber, palm oil and ivory. In the past 20 years, legislation has attempted to curb incentives for armed groups’ exploitation of ‘conflict minerals’ by mandating various forms of responsible sourcing. Despite this, the mineral trade continues to be a boon for armed groups and government forces.

This reliance tends to be misinterpreted as a primary cause of conflict in the DRC, when in fact control of natural resources is just one among a whole host of important factors (corruption, land disputes, interstate tensions, political distrust and ethnic divisions) driving armed struggle in the region. According to a report by the International Peace Information Service (IPIS), natural resources can be both a cause of local disputes, where stakeholders may rely on local armed proxies to protect their claims to land or resources, and a means for armed groups (not excluding government forces) to profit or survive economically, whether through cross-border trade, smuggling or rent-seeking behaviour. 

M23’s capture of Goma, expansion of mining activities and illicit smuggling networks

At Rubaya there appears to have been an increase in mining activity following M23’s capture of Goma, just 70 km away, in late January 2025. Satellite imagery analysed by CIR indicates approximately 142,000 m2 of new excavations made between February and June 2025, whereas a comparison of imagery of the site from October 2024 and February 2025 shows significantly less. 

The timing of this apparent surge in activity may indicate a direct link to M23’s capture of Goma in January 2025, which is well positioned to facilitate the smuggling of minerals into neighbouring Rwanda. The illegal smuggling of ‘conflict minerals’ mined in the Kivus is an open secret: some estimates put the amount of minerals mined in the DRC but labelled as Rwandan at 90%. The same research suggests that ITSCI – an initiative set up to ensure a reliable chain of custody for minerals coming out of the DRC – may actually have ended up incentivising smuggling from exploitative mines in the DRC into Rwanda, where minerals can then be tagged as ‘conflict free’ before entering US and European markets governed by responsible sourcing requirements.. 

While underscoring the failure of responsible sourcing initiatives to adequately address the root causes of exploitative conditions, this also points to a destructive feedback loop between violent conflict, exploitative mining and illegal smuggling in eastern DRC. On one hand, the lucrative opportunities presented by the illicit mineral trade fuel violent conflict as armed groups seek control of resources in order to finance their operations – according to some estimates the Rubaya mine is capable of generating £7.7 million annually. On the other hand, violent conflict compounds exploitative conditions and feeds illicit smuggling networks by perpetuating extractive practices: unsafe digging seems to be at least partly responsible for some of the landslides at Rubaya, while some of the roads along smuggling routes into Rwanda were reportedly built using the forced labour of the local Salongo population. Lurking behind these regional dynamics is the ever present spectre of geopolitical and market forces, epitomised by the Congolese government offering Rubaya, which it does not currently control, to the US in a minerals cooperation framework as the latter hopes to counter Chinese dominance in the region.

Deforestation, coal and IDPs

The forests and national parks of eastern DRC form part of the Congo Basin, a massive carbon sink often referred to as the ‘second lung of the world’. These areas are home not only to diverse, rare and endangered forms of wildlife but also commodities like coal and timber: 95% of the DRC’s population rely on biomass fuel for energy. Satellite imagery analysed by CIR shows significant deforestation in the Itombwe and Kahuzi-Biega nature reserves. At Itombwe, between January 2025 and January 2026 approximately 1.5 km2 of territory was deforested, mostly in or near areas controlled by M23, but this pales in comparison to the 25 km2 of deforestation seen at Kahuzi-Biega over the same period, also near areas controlled by M23. 

Large scale deforestation in eastern DRC is nothing new: in 2023 almost 30 km2  of tree cover was lost at Kahuzi-Biega after the construction of two informal ports on the shores of the nearby Lake Kivu to enable transportation of charcoal and timber to Goma. Unlike the commodities of the mineral trade, much of the timber and charcoal grown and produced in eastern DRC is destined for domestic consumption. The role of M23 and pro-government militias like the FDLR and Wazalendo in the expansion of deforestation activities tends to be indirect: they tend to tax production rather than organise it, which does little to curb the scale of the destruction. Their presence also creates difficulties for rangers engaged in conservation efforts, while the strain of domestic demand on the forests of Kahuzi-Biega, Itombwe and Virunga is compounded by a massive population of internally displaced persons (IDPs), many of whom rely on charcoal and firewood for cooking.

An uncertain future

Eastern DRC’s abundant natural resources and the habitats that host them are just one of the many victims of the ongoing conflict. Armed groups turn to these resources as a means of conflict financing, and at the same time the precarious conditions of millions of people displaced by the conflict itself put further strain on protected areas harbouring the raw materials needed for survival. International efforts to enforce responsible sourcing, which do little to moderate the global demand that makes illicit trade profitable, are prone to abuse, while sites like Rubaya – where ‘conflict minerals’ vital to the production lines of multinational companies are mined by impoverished locals working in poor conditions – are offered up as geopolitical bargaining chips. As the illegal mining trade and deforestation continue apace amid a conflict that shows no sign of slowing, it is habitats, workers and local populations that will suffer.