This mining hub has also become the site of an ongoing human rights crisis linked directly to its natural resources. Indeed, many have typically come from the Kasai region, which has itself recently borne the brunt of massive displacement.

In particular, the mining industry has attracted many migrant labourers, adding to potential tensions. Some 60 per cent of the world’s supply of cobalt - a mineral widely used in the batteries that power EVs, as well as such tech devices as smartphones, tablets and laptops - comes from the DRC, with much of this production concentrated in what was formerly known as Katanga province, a resource-rich region in the south of the country that has nevertheless struggled with widespread poverty and intermittent outbreaks of inter-ethnic violence. Now, as we transition from cars with internal combustion engines to the new generation of electric vehicles (EVs), the DRC again finds itself bearing the human cost of the latest technology. Later on, the uranium used to produce the bombs that dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War was mined in the DRC. When rubber became a key raw material in the manufacture of tyres, the country became the world’s largest producer, supplying European factories throughout the second industrial revolution - but this came with a heavy toll for local communities, who were subjected to forced labour, displacement and other atrocities. In the 150 or so years since, the DRC has repeatedly suffered plunder, civil unrest and the most egregious forms of human rights abuses - much of which is linked to the struggle to control its wealth of metals, minerals and forests.

Cobalt mine africa