M23 rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo recently allowed the BBC to visit a huge mining site under their control which is vital to the production of the world’s mobile phones – and over its vast expanse not one person was idle.
Thousands of miners dotted the landscape covered with pits and tunnels.
Some were deep underground digging up ore with shovels, others then hoisted sacks of the extracted rock containing coltan, which is used to make many electronic devices, on to their shoulders. They then took it to assembly points where others washed and filtered it with spades and by hand.
