Nestled in the green hills of Masisi territory in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the artisanal Rubaya mining site hums with the sound of generators, as hundreds of men labour by hand to extract coltan, a key mineral crucial for modern electronics and defence technology manufacturing.
Rubaya lies in the heart of the eastern DRC, a mineral-rich area of the Central African nation that for decades has been haunted by conflict between government forces and different armed groups, including the Rwanda-backed M23, whose recent resurgence has escalated the violence.
As the United States spearheads peace talks between the DRC and Rwanda, Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi has sought out a deal with the Trump administration, offering mineral access in return for support in quelling the armed rebellion 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 DRC has been in and out of crisis for decades. The conflict has created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with more than seven million people displaced, including 100,000 who fled their homes this year.
The Rubaya mines have been at the centre of the fighting, changing hands between the Congolese government and rebel groups.
For more than a year, the mines have been controlled by the M23 rebels, who earlier this year advanced and seized the strategic cities of Goma and Bukavu in a major escalation of hostilities.
Despite the country’s exceptional mineral wealth, more than 70 percent of Congolese live on less than $2.15 a day.
For the men working in Rubaya’s mines, who rely on the mining for their livelihoods, little has changed over decades of violence.
“I earn $40 a month, but that’s not enough,” said Jean Baptiste Bigirimana, who has worked in the mines for seven years.
“Children need clothes, education and food. When I divide up the money to see how I will take care of my children, I realise it’s not enough,” he said, adding that he does not know where the minerals he mines end up.
Coltan — short for columbite-tantalite — is an ore from which the metals tantalum and niobium are extracted. Both are considered critical raw materials by the US, the European Union, China and Japan.
Tantalum is used in mobile phones, computers and automotive electronics, as well as aircraft engines, missile components and GPS systems. Niobium is used in pipelines, rockets and jet engines.
The DRC produced about 40 percent of the world’s coltan in 2023, according to the US Geological Survey, with Australia, Canada and Brazil being other big suppliers.
According to a United Nations 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.
Experts say it is not easy to trace how coltan arrives in Western countries.
Analysts warn that the implementation of a minerals deal in the eastern DRC, if one were to materialise, will face many hurdles, especially with US investors largely abandoning the country in the last two decades.
If the deal were to include Rubaya, where all mining is currently done manually, US companies would have to contend with both security concerns and a severe lack of infrastructure.
Bahati Moise, a trader who resells coltan from Rubaya’s mines, hopes that, regardless of who controls the mines, the workers who labour 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.”