Congo Gold Kills

We are cursed because of our gold. All we do is suffer. There is no benefit to us.
Congolese gold miner

Human Rights Watch released a report on gold mining in 2005. Not much has changed since then. Gold is the indirect cause of much suffering and the release of CO2 in the mining areas is furthering global warming.
The northeast corner of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is home to one of Africa’s richest goldfields. Competition to control the gold mines and trading routes has spurred the bloody conflict that has gripped this area since the start of the Congolese war in 1998 and continues to the present. Soldiers and armed group leaders, seeing control of the gold mines as a way to money, guns, and power, have fought each other ruthlessly, often targeting civilians in the process. Combatants under their command carried out widespread ethnic slaughter, executions, torture, rape and arbitrary arrest, all grave human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law. More than sixty thousand people have died due to direct violence in this part of Congo alone. Rather than bringing prosperity to the people of northeastern Congo, gold has been a curse to those who have the misfortune to live there.  Full report as a pdf-file

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