Mobile Phones, Coltan and Fighting

There is a great chance that there is a small amount of metal inside your mobile phone that began its journey buried in the land of the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where war is currently raging.

It can even be directly connected to the M23 Rebel Group, which has made global titles this week.

Tantalum in your device weighs less than half of the medium -sized garden peas, but is essential for the effective functioning of a smartphone and almost all other sophisticated electronic devices.

The unique properties of this rare, blue -gray, shiny metal – including being able to hold a high charge compared to its size, while working in a range of temperatures – they make it the ideal material for small capacitors that temporarily store energy.

In addition, it is extracted in Rwanda, Brazil and Nigeria, but at least 40% – and maybe more – than the global supply of the element comes from the Congo, and some of the key yield areas are already under the control of M23.

The current wave of battles has been going on for months, but the rebels have attracted attention with the attack on Sunday on the vital center for the trade and transport of Goma. The city bordering Rwanda is the Regional Mining Business Center

In the last year, the M23 has made rapid progress throughout the mineral east of Dr. Congo, extracting areas where the Coltan-Russian is extracted from which the tantalum is extracted.

Like dozens of other armed groups operating in the area, the M23 began as a team defending the rights of an ethnic group, perceived as a threat. But as its territory has expanded, the yield has become a decisive source of income, paying for fighters and weapons.

Last April, it takes Rubaya, the city in the heart of the Coltan industry in the country.

The extraction of minerals in this region is not in the hands of multinational conglomerates – instead, thousands of individuals work in open pits, which bee are the landscape or underground, under extremely dangerous and unhealthy conditions.

They are part of a complex and yet informal network that sees the rocks removed from the ground with the help of shovels brought to the surface, crushed, washed, taxed, sold and then exported for further purified and ultimately melted.

After the M23 moved to Rubaya, the rebels identify what a group of experts described as a “state administration”, the issuance of permits to diggers and traders and requires an annual fee of $ 25 (£ 20) and $ 250 respectively. The M23 doubled Diggers’ salaries to ensure it will continue to work.

He manages the area as a monopoly, guaranteeing – through the threat of arrest and detention – that only its authorized traders are able to do business.

The M23 also charges a $ 7 fee for each kilogram of Coltan. The group of UN experts estimated that as a result, the M23 earned about $ 800,000 a month from Coltan’s taxation in Rubaya. This money is almost certainly used to finance the rebellion.

There is a question that hangs on how ore extracted from M23 -controlled, enters the worldwide supply chain.

The neighboring Rwanda, which is seen as a supporting M23, is at the center of the answer, UN experts say.

Theoretically, the Certification Scheme – known as the innovative tin supply chain initiative (ITSCI) – should mean that what enters a phone handset and other electronics does not come from conflict areas where it can be used for funding to armed groups responsible for the performance atrocities.

The US DOD-Franco Act, adopted in 2010, and a similar composition of EU legislation is aimed at ensuring that tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold-so-called “conflict minerals” are not involuntary financing of Violence.

But the ITSCI fell under some criticism.

Ken Matissen, an expert on security and resource management with an independent IPI research group, emphasizes that the scattered nature of very small mines makes it difficult for local authorities to observe exactly what is happening everywhere.

ITSCI labels should be placed on bags in the mine itself to prove the origin of the minerals inside, but often they are transported to a point of collection where it becomes more difficult to trace where the ore actually came from, said Matisen.

He added that there was also a possible problem with corruption.

“There is even a charge of state agents selling traders because they do not earn well. Thus, traders then go around East Congo and mark the bags themselves.”

ITSCI did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment, but in the past he defended his record, saying that the scheme was subjected to a strictly independent audit. He is also commendable for bringing “prosperity for hundreds of thousands of small miners.”

In the case of the Rubaya ITSCI stopped its operations there shortly after the M23 entered the city.

Nevertheless, the group managed to continue exporting Coltan.

UN experts are mapping a chain route showing how to transport it to the border with Rwanda. He then transferred to “heavy trucks” who needed the road to expand to accommodate them.

Rwanda has its own color mines, but experts say the non -certified Coltan is mixed with the production of Rwanda, leading to “significant pollution of supply chains”.

The M23 has already participated in the Coltan business before the Rubaya capture – the creation of road blocks and taxi fees to cross them, according to Matizen.

“Much of the trade of these minerals went through a M23-controlled area to Rwanda. So even then Rwanda was winning from instability in the eastern Dr. Congo and we saw that the volumes of Rwanda export were already increasing,” he told the BBC.

The numbers of the US geological survey show that Coltan’s exports to Rwanda increased by 50% between 2022 and 2023. Matissen said this could not come from Rwanda.

In a stable protection of Rwanda’s position, government spokeswoman Yolande Macolo repeated the BBC that there are minerals and a refining capacity in her own country.

“It is very cynical to take a problem like what is happening in the eastern part of the DRC, where the persecuted community fights for its rights … and turns (IT) a matter of material benefit,” she added.

Rwanda President Paul Kagame also rejected the reports of UN experts, pouring contempt for their “expertise”.

Much of the eastern part of the Congo has sunk in conflict for many years, raising questions about who has taken advantage and whether armed groups are profit from what is dug from the ground there.

To emphasize the problem and connection with the smartphone industry, the Congoan government filed penal complaints in France and Belgium late last year against subsidiaries of technology giant Apple, accusing it of using “conflict minerals”.

Apple challenged the claim and indicated that since the beginning of 2024, due to the escalating conflict and the difficulties in certification, it stopped extracting Tantalum, among other metals, from both Congo and Rwanda.

Other companies were not so clear, which means that since the M23 occupies more territory, those small pieces of tantalum from the mines they control could still break into the devices we rely on.