This was seen in a formal desist notice filed by the DRC’s lawyers addressed to Apple which was seen by AFP, threatening legal action if Apple continues the alleged practice after the warning.
The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has accused world-leading phone manufacturing company, Apple of using “illegally exploited” minerals extracted from the country’s war-torn eastern region to manufacture its products.
This was seen in a formal desist notice filed by the DRC’s lawyers addressed to Apple which was seen by AFP, threatening legal action if Apple continues the alleged practice after the warning.
The DRC's Paris-based lawyers accused Apple of acquiring minerals transported from the DRC into neighbouring Rwanda, where they are laundered and "integrated into the global supply chain".
The DRC, the UN and Western countries have accused Rwanda of supporting rebel groups, including March 23 Movement (M23), in a bid to control the region’s vast mineral resources, an allegation Kigali denies.
“Apple has sold technology made with minerals sourced from a region whose population is being devastated by grave human rights violations,” the DRC’s lawyers wrote.
Sexual violence, armed attacks and widespread corruption at sites providing minerals to Apple are just some of the claims levelled in the letter.
Macs, iPhones, and other Apple products are “tainted by the blood of the Congolese people”, the DRC’s lawyers said.
When contacted by AFP, Apple alluded to statements in its 2023 annual business report on the alleged usage of so-called conflict minerals, which are critical for a wide range of high-tech products.
“Based on our due diligence efforts… we found no reasonable basis for concluding that any of the smelters or refiners of 3TG (tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold) determined to be in our supply chain as of Dec 31, 2023, directly or indirectly financed or benefited armed groups in the DRC or an adjoining country,” it said.
SaharaReporters had reported how a bomb struck the airport in the restive eastern DR Congo city of Goma in February as fighting flared between rebels and government forces.
Clashes have intensified lately around the strategic town of Sake, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Goma, between the M23 rebel group – which Kinshasa says is backed by neighbouring Rwanda – and Congolese government forces.