Amnesty blasts evictions linked to Congo industrial mines

Amnesty and Congolese rights group IBGDH found that communities in and near the mining town of Kolwezi had been forcibly evicted or threatened into leaving their homes to make way for mine expansions. — AFP

KINSHASA: Amnesty International says that the expansion of industrial copper and cobalt mines in mineral-rich Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has led to forced evictions and a litany of rights abuses.

The central African nation has the world’s largest reserves of cobalt, a metal viewed as vital for the renewable-energy transition because of its use in electric vehicle batteries.