{"id":14781,"date":"2025-11-07T12:02:59","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T10:02:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/drc-suspends-chinese-mine-after-environmental-spill\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:27:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:27:14","slug":"drc-suspends-chinese-mine-after-environmental-spill","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/drc-suspends-chinese-mine-after-environmental-spill\/","title":{"rendered":"DRC suspends Chinese mine after environmental spill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has suspended activities at a Chinese-operated mining site in the south of the resource-rich country after a spill, Mines Minister Louis Watum Kabamba said late on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>DRC Dongfang International Mining (CDM), which mainly sources copper and cobalt from the Central African country, is a unit of China&#8217;s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Watum said on X that he came to DRC\u2019s second-largest city Lubumbashi after hearing about a spill from the site that had affected several neighborhoods.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>He said that the company does not meet environmental standards, causing water pollution and exposing the population to serious health risks.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The three-month suspension can be extended if necessary, he added.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;CDM must fully repair the environmental damage, ensure the remuneration of its staff, compensate the affected populations, and strictly comply with the requirements of the Mining Code,&#8221; Watum said, adding that an investigation would be conducted into the incident.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>DRC, which accounts for over 70% of global cobalt output, froze exports of the metal in February to curb supply and drive up prices.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Authorities lifted the ban from October 16 to resume exports under a quota system. However, cobalt producers are still waiting for government approval to restart shipments, industry sources told <em>Reuters<\/em> last month.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14782,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-14781","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has suspended activities at a Chinese-operated mining site","published_date":"2025-11-07 14:02:34","news_description":"The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has suspended activities at a Chinese-operated mining site","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/14781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/14781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19295,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/14781\/revisions\/19295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=14781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}