RUBAYA, Jan 31: A series of landslides struck a militia-held mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo, burying people alive and killing several, the governor and witnesses told AFP on Friday.
Since its resurgence in 2021, the M23 group has taken vast tracts of the DRC's resource-rich east, capturing the Rubaya mine in North Kivu province in April 2024 with Rwanda's help.
Scavengers said part of a hillside in the Rubaya mining zone collapsed on Wednesday afternoon. A second landslide struck on Thursday morning.
"It rained, then the landslide followed and swept people away. Some were buried and others are still in the pits," freelance miner Franck Bolingo told AFP.
Eraston Bahati Musanga, the M23?appointed governor of North Kivu province, told AFP the slide had been deadly.
"Some bodies have been found," he said, without giving an exact number but suggesting it could be significant.
AFP was unable to independently verify a toll.
"There was a landslide on Wednesday when I was in a pit looking for minerals," said Olivier Zinzabakwira, adding that he narrowly escaped.
Dozens of scavengers were still shovelling away at the vast site on Friday, AFP video showed.
Dressed in tank tops and rubber boots for some of the better equipped, men and women continued to sift through the pits, despite the danger.
The Rubaya mine produces 15 to 30 percent of the world's supply of coltan, key to making of electronics like laptops and mobile phones.
According to United Nations experts, the M23 has set up an administration parallel to the Congolese state to regulate the operation of the Rubaya mine since its capture.
The experts estimate that the M23 makes around $800,000 a month from the mine thanks to a seven-dollars-a-kilo tax on the production and sale of coltan.
The UN experts also accuse Rwanda -- which denies providing the M23 with military support -- of using the militia to syphon off the DRC's mineral riches.
Besides containing between 60 to 80 percent of the world's coltan, the wider eastern DRC is also home to vast reserves of gold and tin.
Several international mining firms have temporarily halted their operations in the east as a result of the M23's advance.
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