Two Dozen Dead in Collapse of Illegal DRC Gold Mine

A group of artisanal miners pose for a photograph on a site in the Kailo territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Wikimedia Commons)

24 people died in the collapse of an illegal gold mine in the town of Kampene in Maniema Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on October 3. Another 11 workers from the site have been hospitalized following the collapse, and several more have been reported missing.

“Dozens of people, including children and pregnant women,” were working at the mine at the time of the collapse, according to Justin Kyanga Asumani, a civil society campaigner in the region. Stephane Kamundala, a regional NGO leader, verified that the dead found in the rubble included women and children. 

Regional authorities had closed the Kampene mine in May 2019 after an advocacy group that specializes in small-scale mining deemed the site “too dangerous” to operate. Following the collapse, Auguy Musafiri, governor of the Maniema province, claimed that the local government had no knowledge that mining activities had illegally continued after the shutdown of the location. 

The Maniema provincial government has pledged to cover medical costs for the wounded and funeral costs for the dead. Meanwhile, state officials including Steve Mbikayi, Minister of Humanitarian Action, are calling for stricter standards as the DRC faces international scrutiny regarding its mining regulations. 

The collapse in Kampene marks the second fatal mining accident this year in the DRC. In June, a landslide killed more than 40 workers at a cobalt mine in the southern region of the country. The mine itself was a legal enterprise owned by Swiss mining corporation Glencore, but authorities attributed the collapse to illegal mining at the perimeter of the site. 

After the Glencore accident in June, the Congolese government responded with military force. The army deployed thousands of troops to remove illegal miners from the Glencore site. However, as evidenced by the Kampene collapse, the threat of military intervention has done little to slow illegal mining in other regions of the country. 

Illegal mining in the DRC is by no means limited to the Kampene and Glencore sites. Amnesty International estimates that “hundreds of thousands of people in the mineral-rich region make a living through informal, unregulated artisanal mining.” Bloomberg reports that in the Katanga Province alone, approximately 200,000 people depend on artisanal mining for their income.