The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has threatened tech giant Apple to desist from using what it calls “blood minerals” drawn from the impoverished Central African country or face legal action.
- The DRC accused the company of buying minerals that are illicitly transported from the DRC to Rwanda. These minerals’ origins are purportedly concealed, allowing them to infiltrate the global technology supply chain.
- The DRC’s mineral-rich eastern region is home to tantalum, tin, tungsten, and gold (collectively known as 3T or 3TG). The region has been plagued by violence for decades.
- Tensions escalated in late 2021 when rebels from the March 23 Movement (M23) began recapturing territory, exacerbating conflict over mineral resources.
- Rwanda has been accused by the DRC, the United Nations, and Western countries of supporting rebel groups like M23 to gain control over the region’s vast mineral wealth.
- These minerals are known as blood minerals, because all the wars in eastern DRC have involved access to mineral resources, in the forests and villages inhabited by indigenous and local communities, where women and children are either deprived of their villages and fields, raped, killed or mutilated, or forced to work in the mines.
(Source: Down To Earth)
