Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of injuries, sexual assault, sex trafficking, and death.

Kara goes to Kolwezi, “home to roughly one-fourth of the world’s cobalt reserves” (157). He estimates that approximately 1.5 million people live in the city among mines (there has not been a census in the DRC since 1985). There is a pronounced military presence in Kolwezi due to a history of regional conflict and to protect the mining interests. Kara visits the nearby village of Kapata and meets with a 69-year-old grandmother named Lubuya, “the oldest person I ever interviewed in the Congo” (162). She says things were better when there was less artisanal mining. She thinks Kara is foolish for thinking that his reporting will change their living conditions.

Kara visits the nearby Lake Malo. Women and girls who work there washing stones report sexual assault by the soldiers and complain the water—polluted with mine run-off—makes them sick. Kara meets with a Gécamines executive named Aristote, who complains that NGOs and the World Bank forced through the 2002 Mining Code (which opened up Congolese mining to foreign direct investment) to benefit themselves, and that the foreign companies use loopholes to shirk tax payments.