UN reports Conflict Minerals & the M23 War in Congo

Decades of war in eastern DRC are financed in part by minerals. UN experts and rights groups say Rwanda backs the M23 armed group, which in 2024 seized the Rubaya mine — roughly 15% of the world's coltan — earning an estimated $800,000/month in taxes. The DRC and Rwanda together supply about half the world's coltan, the ore behind the tantalum in phones and laptops. A 2025 UN report named a Rwandan exporter as buying smuggled Congolese minerals; a Global Witness investigation traced conflict coltan toward EU commodity trader Traxys (which denies its Rwandan coltan came from Rubaya). The chain runs from atrocity to the device in your hand.