Coltan linked to conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has likely entered the European Union market through international commodities trader Traxys, a Global Witness investigation has revealed.<\/p>\n
The report found that Traxys<\/a>, a multibillion-dollar company based in Luxembourg, bought at least 280 tonnes of coltan from Rwanda in 2024, with evidence suggesting a significant proportion is connected to the war in eastern DRC.<\/p>\n The report<\/a> is based on customs data and testimony from two smugglers and sources in government, civil society and the mining sector.<\/p>\n The main mines exploiting coltan in the Great Lakes region of central Africa are found in the Rubaya area of eastern DRC.<\/p>\n In February, Rwandan-backed armed group M23 conquered the region, occupying Goma in North Kivu, the largest city in eastern DRC, and Bukavu, a city of more than 1 million and the capital of South Kivu province, just weeks later.<\/p>\n DRC: South Kivu governor confirms Congo’s M23 rebels are in Bukavu city<\/a><\/p>\n Illegal trade<\/p>\n \u201cOur investigation strongly suggests that conflict coltan from the DRC smuggled to Rwanda<\/a> has entered the EU,” Alex Kopp, senior campaigner at Global Witness, said in a statement shared with RFI.<\/p>\n African Panther has also denied the presence of smuggled coltan from Rubaya in its supply chain.<\/p>\n Read more on RFI English<\/a><\/p>\n Read also:
DRC takes on Apple: can conflict mineral mining be stopped?<\/a>
DRC case against Apple brings new hope in conflict minerals crisis<\/a>
France ramps up diplomacy as M23 rebels advance in eastern DRC<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coltan linked to conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has likely entered the European Union market…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[18332,18333,2000,299,5187,1699,18331],"class_list":{"0":"post-30867","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-conflict-minerals","9":"tag-democratic-republic-of-congo","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-global-witness"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114360362161234979","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}