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Africa Mining

Blood minerals in DR Congo – by Harriet Marsden (The Week – January 28, 2025)

https://theweek.com/

Battle for control of central African nation fuelled by increasing demand for minerals crucial in manufacture of smartphones and laptops

“The source of misery for the people of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo lies in the vast natural treasures beneath their feet,” said The Times. The region boasts a “dizzying array” of riches, such as gold and diamonds, but the “most coveted are the lesser known”: coltan, cobalt and other minerals “crucial in the production of laptops and smartphones”.

It is “no coincidence” that violence has increased alongside consumer demand for tech. But while the slogan “blood diamonds” helped to ease conflicts elsewhere in Africa, a “similarly murderous hunt for smart-tech minerals” has only intensified in the DRC, displacing seven million and “condemning a region to perpetual chaos”.

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M23 rebels in Goma: gains to boost illicit mineral trade through Rwanda, analysts say – by Sonia Rolley and Felix Njini (Reuters – January 28, 2025)

https://www.reuters.com/

Jan 28 (Reuters) – A lightning advance in Congo’s mineral-rich eastern borderlands is set to boost the M23 rebellion’s illegal mining revenues, with analysts predicting a further surge in illicit trade in minerals including coltan and gold through neighbouring Rwanda.

The Rwanda-backed insurgency entered Goma, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s largest city, this week, marking a major turning point in a conflict with government forces that has raised fears of a spillover into a broader regional war.

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Rwandan-backed rebels capture Goma in dramatic escalation of Congo war – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – January 28, 2025)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A heavily armed Rwandan-backed militia marched into the strategic city of Goma in eastern Congo on Monday, seizing control of most of the regional hub in defiance of United Nations demands for its withdrawal.

Goma, a crowded city of two million residents and several hundred thousand refugees near the Rwandan border, has been under siege by the M23 militia and its Rwandan allies for the past year. The M23 offensive, including frequent attacks on civilians, has forced more than a million people to flee from their homes across the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with many seeking shelter in Goma.

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A South African horror story: Illegal mining standoff draws to an end – by Kate Bartlett (NPR.org – January 17, 2025)

https://www.npr.org/

STILFONTEIN, South Africa —They look like the walking dead. Dusty men, skin and hair caked in dirt, skeletal. Some struggle to walk and collapse. They blink like moles in the harsh South African sunlight. Some look painfully young.

Operations to rescue hundreds of illegal miners at an abandoned gold mine in Stilfontein, a small mining town about 100 miles Southwest of Johannesburg, started Monday and ended Thursday when rescuers said there was no longer anyone left in the shaft.

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Standoff in South Africa ends with 87 miners dead and anger over police’s ‘smoke them out’ tactics – by Mogomotsi Magome and Gerald Imray (Associated Press – Janaury 16, 2025)

https://apnews.com/

STILFONTEIN, South Africa (AP) — The death toll in a monthslong standoff between police and miners trapped while working illegally in an abandoned gold mine in South Africa has risen to at least 87, police said Thursday. Authorities faced growing anger and a possible investigation over their initial refusal to help the miners and instead “smoke them out” by cutting off their food supplies.

National police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said that 78 bodies were retrieved in a court-ordered rescue operation, with 246 survivors also pulled out from deep underground since the operation began on Monday. Mathe said nine other bodies had been recovered before the rescue operation, without giving details.

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In Namibia, a Canadian copper company leaves a legacy of toxic waste – by Geoffrey York and Samuel Schlaefli (Globe and Mail – January 15, 2025)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Sickness has been common for years in Tsumeb, where Dundee Precious Metals was the biggest employer for more than a decade. Tests have now found the soil is contaminated with arsenic and other heavy metals

In the citrus orchards above the Namibian town, workers often fall sick. They say they feel a burning sensation in their eyes and throats and a metallic taste in their mouths as the wind blows across from the copper smelter a few kilometres away.

“When the gas is coming from that side, we get headaches and dizziness, and sometimes you feel like you want to throw up,” says Festus Gawab, who has worked for three years on a citrus farm near Tsumeb, watering the orange and lemon trees.

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The ‘terrifying’ crackdown on mining companies in Africa’s coup belt – by Aanu Adeoye and Camilla Hodgson (Financial Times – January 13, 2025)

https://www.ft.com/

Military regimes in the Sahel have turned to tactics including arrests to assert control over critical mineral supplies

International mining companies are at the mercy of “terrifying” tactics from military regimes in Africa’s Sahel, whose leaders are using legal disputes, nationalisations and arrests to assert greater control over crucial minerals like gold and uranium.

Barrick Gold on Tuesday temporarily suspended operations in Mali after the government started seizing gold from its mine, weeks after the country issued an arrest warrant for chief executive Mark Bristow. Authorities separately detained Australian gold miner Resolute’s chief executive Terence Holohan for nearly two weeks.

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Mali seizes 3 tons of gold from Canadian company Barrick amid dispute over share of revenue – by Wilson McMakin and Baba Ahmed (Associated Press – January 13, 2025)

https://apnews.com/

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Mali’s military government has started seizing gold stocks of the Canadian mining company Barrick as part of a legal battle over the share of revenue owed to the West African state, according to an internal Barrick letter seen by The Associated Press.

The letter from CEO Mark Bristow to the Malian Mining Minister, dated Monday, says Barrick is “awaiting official confirmation of the proper receipt by the Malian Solidarity Bank,” a government entity. The seizure follows a warning letter to Barrick earlier this month from Mali’s senior investigating judge, Boubacar Moussa Diarra, saying three tons of gold would be seized.

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Mali starts seizing gold stocks at Barrick site, company memo says – by Fadimata Kontao and Portia Crowe (Reuters – January 13, 2025)

https://www.reuters.com/

BAMAKO/DAKAR Jan 13 (Reuters) – Mali’s government has begun enforcing a provisional order to seize gold stock at Barrick Gold’s Loulo-Gounkoto site, the Canadian miner said in a note to Malian staff, warning again that it may have to suspend operations at the complex.

The move suggests that Mali’s military-led authorities are not ready to back down in a standoff over a contract based on new mining rules as they push for a greater share of revenues from Western miners. “A provisional order to seize our existing gold stock was issued last week and the Malian government began its enforcement on Jan. 11,” Barrick said in the staff memo.

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Barrick mine in Mali could be forced to close within a week, company says – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – January 6, 2025)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Barrick Gold Corp. says it will be forced to shut down its operations in Mali within a week if the military junta continues to restrict its gold exports from the West African country.

The Toronto-based company disclosed on Monday that the regime had imposed yet another restriction on the company’s operations by issuing an interim attachment order on its existing gold stock at its Loulo-Gounkoto mining complex.

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The Blood in Our Phones – by James North (Truth Dig.com – January 6, 2025)

https://www.truthdig.com/

A lawsuit filed by the Democratic Republic of Congo seeks to hold Apple and its suppliers to account for decades of profiting off conflict minerals.

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo is bringing criminal complaints in Europe against Apple, the tech giant, charging it with sourcing materials for its electronics in ways that contribute to vicious violence in the war-torn eastern DRC.

In part, the lawsuit accuses Apple of acquiring Congolese minerals that have been illegally smuggled through Rwanda, which borders DRC to the east. Apple denies the charges. So far, the mainstream U.S. media is mostly ignoring the story, continuing its decades-long indifference to what continues to be one of the greatest humanitarian disasters since World War II.

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Miners navigate high risks, ransoms in West Africa – by Trish Saywell (Northern Miner – December 16, 2024)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Mali’s military government is trying to arrest the CEO of the world’s second-largest gold company while the junta in Niger has tightened its stranglehold on a French state-owned uranium mine. African dictators are ratcheting up the risk for Western miners.

A combination of resource nationalism, coups and jihadist-linked terror is making West Africa an increasingly difficult region to navigate for Western mining companies. On Monday, Barrick Gold (TSX: ABX; NYSE: GOLD) warned that it will suspend operations at its Loulo-Gounkoto mine in Mali if shipments of gold remain blocked.

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Long-term demand outlook for platinum is robust, ongoing question mark over supply – by Martin Creamer (Mining Weekly – December 13, 2024)

https://www.miningweekly.com/

The long-term outlook for platinum from a demand perspective is pretty robust. The question, once again, is whether supply will be adequate to meet it. “In terms of automotive demand, we can’t overlook that the drivetrain is going to continue to electrify.

“It’s just the pace of that electrification that is quite difficult to predict as things stand at the moment,” World Platinum Investment Council (WPIC) research director Edward Sterck commented to Engineering News & Mining Weekly in a Zoom interview.

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Child labour: Nigeria’s lithium mines reveal the dark side of our electric future – by Jerry Fisayo-Bambi and Ruth Wright (Euro News – December 13, 2024)

https://www.euronews.com/

Children as young as five-years-old were found to be working in one illegal mine.

Electric vehicles, laptops, battery packs, smartphones…it’s a long list of items we rely on every day that rely on a key material: lithium. But have you stopped to think who mines for this precious metal? In northern Nigeria, it has been found to be children. Lithium mining is dangerous and exhausting work.

Miners descend several feet into dark pits then wield axes to hack through rocks. In some old but viable mines, they crawl through yards of snaky, narrow passages, wedging themselves between unstable mud walls before starting to dig. Abdullahi Sabiu has spent years in these pits after he started working the mines at 20.

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The Gold Rush at the Heart of a Civil War – by Declan Walsh (New York Times – December 11, 2024)

https://www.nytimes.com/

Famine and ethnic cleansing stalk Sudan. Yet the gold trade is booming, enriching generals and propelling the fight.

The luxury jet touched down in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, on a mission to collect hundreds of pounds of illicit gold. On board was a representative of a ruthless paramilitary group accused of ethnic cleansing in Sudan’s sprawling civil war, the flight manifest showed. The gold itself had been smuggled from Darfur, a region of famine and fear in Sudan that is largely under his group’s brutal control.

Porters grunted as they heaved cases filled with gold, about $25 million worth, onto the plane, said three people involved with or briefed on the deal. Airport officials discreetly maintained a perimeter around the jet, which stood out in the main airport of one of the world’s poorest countries.

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