The bishops’ conference of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has sent four delegates to COP30, the UN climate change conference in Brazil. One of them—Jeanne-Marie Abanda, executive secretary of the Episcopal Commission for Natural Resources—decried the phenomenon of “conflict minerals,” or “blood minerals.”
“We are suffering an unjust war, a war we call the mineral war,” Abanda told Vatican News. “Our minerals have become blood minerals, because neighboring countries are being armed to attack us and then seize our minerals. Every phone we hold in our hands contains the blood of Congolese people, because it is Congolese coltan that is used to make phones.”
Abanda added, “The Congolese people need peace. The Congolese can sell their minerals through normal channels. They don’t have to kill us to take our minerals.”