Coltan miners dig for world’s tech, and struggle regardless of who is in charge

Miners work at the D4 Gakombe coltan quarry in Rubaya, Democratic Republic of Congo

Nestled in the green hills of Masisi territory in Congo, the artisanal Rubaya mining site hums with the sound of generators, as hundreds of men labor by hand to extract coltan, a key mineral crucial for producing modern electronics and defense technology — and fiercely sought after worldwide.

Rubaya lies in the heart of eastern Congo, a mineral-rich part of the Central African nation which for decades has been ripped apart by violence from government forces and different armed groups, including the Rwanda-backed M23, whose recent resurgence has escalated the conflict, worsening an already acute humanitarian crisis.

As the U.S. spearheads peace talks between Congo and Rwanda, Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi has sought out a deal with the Trump administration, offering mineral access in return for American support in quelling the insurgency and boosting security.

While details of the deal remain unclear, analysts said Rubaya might be one of the mining sites which fall under its scope.

Eastern Congo has been in and out of crisis for decades. The conflict has created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises with more than 7 million people displaced, including 100,000 who fled homes this year.

The Rubaya mines have been at the center of the fighting, changing hands between the Congolese government and rebel groups. For over a year now, it has been controlled by the M23 rebels, who earlier this year advanced and seized the strategic city of Goma and Bukavu in a major escalation of the conflict.

Despite the country’s exceptional mineral wealth, over 70% of Congolese live on less than $2.15 a day.

Metals for modern life, military preparedness

For the men working in the Rubaya’s mines, who rely on the mining for their livelihoods, little has changed over decades of violence.

One of them is Jean Baptiste Bigirimana, who has worked in the mines for seven years.

“I earn $40 a month, but that’s not enough,” he said. “Children need clothes, education and food. When I divide up the money to see how I will take care of my children, I realize it’s not enough,” he said, adding that he doesn’t know where the minerals he mines go once they leave Rubaya.

The mines produce coltan — short for columbite-tantalite — an ore from which the metals tantalum and niobium are extracted. Both are considered critical raw materials by the United States, the European Union, China and Japan. Tantalum is used in mobile phones, computers and automotive electronics, as well as in aircraft engines, missile components and GPS systems. Niobium is used in pipelines, rockets and jet engines.

Congo produced about 40% of the world’s coltan in 2023, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, with Australia, Canada and Brazil being other major suppliers.

The National Energy Emergency executive order, issued by Trump, highlighted the significance of critical minerals — including tantalum and niobium — and called for securing U.S. access to ensure both “modern life and military preparedness.”

A ‘murky’ global supply chain

According to a U.N. report, since seizing Rubaya in April last year, the M23 has imposed taxes on the monthly trade and transport of 120 tonnes of coltan, generating at least $800,000 a month. The coltan then is exported to Rwanda, U.N. experts said. But even before M23 seized control of the mine, analysts said that the mineral was sold to Rwanda, the only difference being it was done through Congolese intermediaries.

Experts say that it is not easy to trace how coltan arrives in Western countries.

“The global coltan supply chain is pretty murky,” said Guillaume de Brier, a natural resources researcher at the Antwerp-based International Peace Information Service. “From eastern DRC, coltan is bought by traders, mostly Lebanese or Chinese, who will sell it to exporters based in Rwanda. Exporters will then ship it to the UAE or China, where it will be refined into tantalum and niobium, and sold to Western countries as metals from UAE or China.”

The M23 has previously controlled Rubaya for periods of time, and the U.N. asserted that, even before the takeover of Goma, the group was facilitating the smuggling of these minerals to Rwanda. Since M23 took control of the mine, Rwanda’s official coltan exports have doubled, according to Rwandan official figures.

At times the mines were also under control of the Wazalendo, a militia allied with the Congolese army.

Alexis Twagira said he feels some things have improved under M23. “I’ve been working in this mine for 13 years, and I’ve worked under the Wazalendo. When they were here, they would harass us, sometimes taking our minerals and demanding money,” he said.

The U.N. has accused both the Congolese army and the M23 rebels of human rights abuses.

‘We can’t continue like this’

Congo is the world’s largest producer of cobalt, a mineral used to make lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and other products, but U.S. access is complicated by the fact that Chinese companies control 80% of its Congolese production. Congo also produces gold.

In recent weeks, two U.S. companies opened doors to production in the region. Nathan Trotter, a U.S. firm, signed a letter of intent with Rwanda-based Trinity Metals, which owns Rwanda’s largest tin mine. And KoBold Metals, which uses Artificial Intelligence to further energy transition and is backed by billionaire Bill Gates, brokered a deal to buy Australia’s AVZ Minerals’ interest in Congo’s Manono lithium deposits.

Analysts warn that the implementation of a minerals deal in eastern Congo, if one was to materialize, will face many hurdles — especially with U.S. investors largely abandoning Congo in the last two decades.

“Turning a headline announcement into sustainable progress will require resolving deep suspicions between Rwanda and the DRC,” Chatham House, a research institute, said in a recent report. “A deal will also need to account for complex local political problems of land access and identity, wider security challenges in a region that hosts myriad non-state armed groups, and issues of asset scarcity.”

If the deal were to include Rubaya, where all mining is currently done manually, U.S. companies would have to contend with both security concerns and a severe lack of infrastructure.

“With coltan, you’re dealing with hundreds of thousands of miners, and not just M23, but other so-called auto-defense armed groups and individuals who rely on mining for survival,” said de Brier from the International Peace Information Service. “You have to build all the infrastructure, you have to start from scratch. You will even have to build the roads.”

Bahati Moïse, a trader who resells coltan from Rubaya’s mines, hopes that, regardless who controls the mines, the workers who labor to extract the minerals will finally be valued as much as the resources themselves.

“The whole country, the whole world knows that phones are made from the coltan mined here, but look at the life we live,” he said. “We can’t continue like this.” DAVID YUSUFU KIBINGILA & MONIKA PRONCZUK, RUBAYA, MDT/AP