At least 32 artisanal miners died on Saturday in the collapse of a cobalt mine located in the south of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a government source said on Sunday, November 16.
The accident occurred at the Kalando mining site, located in the Mulondo mine, which is officially operated by the Pajeclem company, about 42 kilometers southeast of Kolwezi town, the capital of Lualaba province, according to local authorities.
“Even though access to the site was officially prohibited due to heavy rain and the risk of landslides, illegal diggers forced their way into the mine,” assured Roy Kaumba Mayonde, provincial Minister of Home Affairs, in a statement to the press. “To date, 32 bodies have been recovered,” he said, explaining that the search operation “continue”.
There “rushing across the diggers” causing the collapse of a homemade bridge, which they had built to cross a flooded ditch bordering the site, the official added.
A report from the Assistance and Monitoring Service for Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (Saemape) – a government body responsible for providing technical and financial assistance to mining cooperatives – consulted by AFP on Sunday cited panic caused by soldiers present at the site. “In their autumn”, minors “stack on top of each other, causing injury and death,” the document states.
According to this report, the Kalando site has been the subject of a dispute for several months between traditional diggers and the mining cooperative that is supposed to oversee them, as well as the site’s operator, who is presented as “Chinese Partners”.
Images sent to AFP by the provincial office of the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), a public agency, showed miners removing bodies piled up at the bottom of the trench, and at least 17 bodies lying on the ground near the crash site. The provincial government announced this Sunday the suspension of activities at the site.
“More than 10,000” Artisanal diggers are present at the site, Arthur Kabulo, CNDH coordinator in Lualaba province, assured AFP.
Accusations of child labor, dangerous working conditions and corruption in the crafts sector weigh on the entire cobalt industry in Congo.
Congo produces more than 70% of the world’s cobalt, a metal essential for batteries used in electronics and electric cars.
Most of Congo’s cobalt is extracted from giant industrial mines, but more than 200,000 people are estimated to work as diggers in illegal sites.
