Amnesty flags evictions for mine expansions

In a 98-page report, Amnesty International and Congolese rights group IBGDH found that communities in and near the mining town of Kolwezi, in the DRC's southeast, had been forcibly evicted or threatened into leaving their homes to make way for mine expansions. ‘The people living in the region should be benefiting from the growth in mining. Instead, many are being forced out of their homes and farmland,’ the report said. The East African reports that, based on interviews with 133 people, documentary evidence and satellite imagery, the report analysed the impact of four mining projects in the area. Entire settlements have been forcibly evicted, the report found, becoming ‘collateral damage of energy transition mining’. In a statement accompanying the report, Amnesty International’s secretary-general Agnes Callamard said the rights organisation recognised the crucial need to transition to renewable energy but demanded an end to abuses. ‘The people of the DRC experienced significant exploitation and abuse during the colonial and post-colonial era, and their rights are still being sacrificed as the wealth around them is stripped away,’ she said.