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Global tech giants face a reckoning as Congo’s conflict exposes the dark side of ‘conflict-free’ minerals.
Image Source: Getty
The recent bout of violence in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has translated into a systematic shock for rare earth and critical mineral markets globally. With the DRC supplying much of the world’s tantalum and cobalt—essential components in producing electric vehicles (EVs), smartphones, and modern weaponry—the ongoing violence in the region has triggered a major geopolitical and economic disruption.
Supported by Rwandan intelligence and benefitting from artisanal mining networks, the M23 rebel group’s resurgence exposes the “conflict-free” certification systems of the Responsible Minerals Assurance Process (RMAP) and the International Tin Supply Chain Initiative (ITSCI), and accelerates a worldwide search for substitutes. With tantalum prices surging heavily since late 2024, the crisis highlights how localised violence can set off domino effects across critical sectors such as renewable energy and defence.
The DRC alone produced 220,000 metric tonnes of cobalt in 2024, hosting 70 percent of its global reserves. The country is also a global leader in tantalum production, responsible for 42 percent of its global share. Its conflict-prone eastern regions house most of its coltan ores—which are refined to obtain tantalum, making the DRC one of the most important suppliers of rare earth minerals on the planet.
Satellite images confirm M23’s development efforts, which include expanding roads for transporting minerals to Rwanda, where exports skyrocketed by 42.5 percent in 2023, even though the country possesses slender reserves.
The M23 rebel group’s recent capture of the DRC’s key mining hubs—particularly Rubaya, which produces about 15 percent of the world’s coltan—has turned the region’s industry into an asset for war. Since 2023, separatist organisations have displaced over 237,000 residents, created an entrenched warzone, and smuggled coltan through Rwanda. Satellite images confirm M23’s development efforts, which include expanding roads for transporting minerals to Rwanda, where exports skyrocketed by 42.5 percent in 2023, even though the country possesses slender reserves.
As a result, Rwanda has emerged as a key transit and export centre of coltan. In 2023, its revenues from mined materials were estimated to reach US$ 1.1 billion, the majority of which were presumably smuggled from the DRC.
Smuggling networks operate at an international scale, as most of Rwanda’s coltan market exports are sourced from the DRC and are laundered into EV and smartphone supply chains through forged certifications. A 2025 report from the United Nations (UN) revealed that the M23 rebel group earns approximately US$ 800,000 monthly from the mines in Rubaya. The M23’s takeover of mines in eastern Congo has enabled unrestricted mining. One major consequence is the unregulated industrial discharge into the Congo River and the Great Lakes, which serve as the region’s primary water sources. This has led to agricultural collapse due to increased water pollution and a rise in birth defects.
M23's takeover of Rubaya, Goma, and Bukavu in early 2025 disabled crucial trade routes and provoked a temporary paralysis of the global tantalum production, disrupting entire supply chains. The blockade mounted by the rebels around Goma pruned North Kivu’s mineral exports significantly in 2024. On the other hand, Rwanda’s clandestine coltan exports witnessed significant growth beginning in early 2025. The ITSCI’s withdrawal from Walikale and Masisi regions due to the M23 insurgency in April 2025 rendered 31 percent of tantalum untraceable. This made it impossible to certify major quantities of tantalum each month, considerably hindering the global market for rare earth minerals. The move also raised ethical concerns, as uncertified tantalum from the region could no longer be legally traded on the international market.
M23's takeover of Rubaya, Goma, and Bukavu in early 2025 disabled crucial trade routes and provoked a temporary paralysis of the global tantalum production, disrupting entire supply chains.
The escalation of violence has resulted in rising prices, with tantalum pegged at US$102/lb by April 2025, marking a 26 percent increase. Cobalt prices skyrocketed 44 percent as multinational firms started stockpiling these minerals. Nonetheless, challenges persist: Apple ceased 3TG minerals sourcing from the DRC and Rwanda in December 2024 after the DRC government filed criminal complaints against the company in France and Belgium, accusing it of sourcing “blood minerals” from conflict zones, including areas controlled by the M23 rebel group. As ITSCI-certified supply disappeared, a Global Witness investigation alleged that EU-based trader Traxys purchased coltan smuggled from conflict zones in the DRC controlled by the M23 group—a claim the company denied—highlighting ongoing challenges in preventing conflict minerals from entering global supply chains.
A United States (US)-DRC minerals deal, currently under negotiation and aimed at challenging Beijing's dominance, has intensified Western efforts to reduce reliance on China, which controls 15 of Congo's 19 major copper and cobalt mines.
Negotiations are ongoing under the Trump administration's supervision, as the DRC offers the US exclusive mining rights in exchange for military assistance against Rwanda-backed M23 rebels. Notwithstanding the UN assessment on the controversial provenance of Rwanda's exports, the EU and Rwanda inked a €900 million deal in 2024 to acquire vital minerals, even as the US penalised Rwandan officials associated with M23 for funding rebels through mineral smuggling. Consequently, the DRC denounced the EU agreement as complicit in “plundering” the country’s mineral resources.
International frameworks such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Due Diligence Guidance and Section 1502 of the US Dodd-Frank Act seek to stop the trade in conflict minerals by facilitating supply chain transparency and ethical sourcing. Although importers are required to inspect suppliers under the EU's 2021 Conflict Materials Regulation, laundered materials can enter markets due to small-scale importers' exemptions and dependence on self-reporting. According to Global Witness, 60 percent of audited minerals from M23-controlled mines were given ‘ethical’ tags, demonstrating the fraud-proneness of certification programs like ITSCI, which are intended to verify conflict-free minerals. Smuggling networks use inadequate traceability mechanisms to route Congolese coltan through Rwanda, a country with small reserves but 2,700 tonnes in yearly exports, in contravention of UN bans and OECD guidelines.
Systemic exploitation continues, highlighting the chasm between corporate promises and actual practices in the absence of mandatory enforcement and full supply chain transparency.
Even though they have promised ethical sourcing, tech corporations are under increasing scrutiny. Corporations including Apple, Tesla, Alphabet, Dell, and Microsoft were alleged to have “deliberately obscured" their dependence on child labour in cobalt mining operations in the DRC—claims these companies have denied, with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruling in their favour. Systemic exploitation continues, highlighting the chasm between corporate promises and actual practices in the absence of mandatory enforcement and full supply chain transparency.
The Congo crisis highlights the urgent challenge of mineral extraction rooted in human and environmental exploitation. Addressing the rebel economy requires coordinated action—penalising Rwandan traffickers, supporting local administrations, and scaling up traceability technologies. Moreover, EV and tech industries risk perpetuating the very violence they are trying to avoid without conflict resolution and robust ethical sourcing frameworks. Given that instability threatens the derailment of global decarbonisation ambitions, sustainable resource governance is both a moral and an economic need. In the hills of the Congo, the future of technology hangs in the balance.
Veer Puri is a Research Intern at the Observer Research Foundation.
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