GOMA, DR Congo, June 20, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - A pit collapse has killed at least 
16 people at the Democratic Republic of Congo's largest coltan mine, 
controlled by the Rwanda-backed M23 militia, local sources told AFP on 
Friday.

Since its resurgence in 2021, the M23 has taken vast tracts of the DRC's 
resource-rich east, capturing the Rubaya mine in North Kivu province in April 
2024 with Rwanda's help.

Its advance has intensified the more than three-decades-long conflict which 
has ravaged the eastern DRC, where dozens of rival armed groups and foreign 
powers have long vied for control of the region's rich veins of valuable 
minerals.

The Rubaya mine produces 15 to 30 percent of the world's supply of coltan, 
which is key to the making of electronics including laptops and mobile 
phones.

At the time of the landslide on Thursday morning, around 131 diggers were on 
site, according to Emmanuel Ndizeye, a local official appointed by the M23. 

Of those, 111 were rescued, while 16 bodies were recovered and four more were 
still missing, the M23's administrator for the Masisi territory where the 
mine is located told AFP.

According to United Nations experts, the M23 has set up an administration in 
parallel to the Congolese state to regulate the operation of the Rubaya mine 
since its capture.

The experts estimate that the M23 makes around $800,000 a month from the mine 
thanks to a seven-dollars-a-kilo tax on the production and sale of coltan. 
However, that amount represents only a fraction of the M23's revenue from the 
levies it imposes on trade in the regions under its control.

The UN experts also accuse Rwanda -- which denies providing the M23 with 
military support -- of using the militia to syphon off the DRC's mineral 
riches.

Besides containing between 60 to 80 percent of the world's coltan, the wider 
eastern DRC is also home to vast reserves of gold and tin. 

Several international mining firms have temporarily halted their operations 
in the east as a result of the M23's advance.