DRC: Trade in conflict minerals continues

The Congo government's ban on trade in conflict minerals has met with little success as trade in North Kivu remains dominated by a mafia network that connect the mines to international markets, a report by the Enough Project said on Tuesday. Many armed groups have benefited from Congo's protracted violence and don't like the possibility of a shrinking market for their minerals, Research Director David Sullivan said in a statement. 'So it should come as no surprise that some of the fastest-moving efforts to trace and audit mineral supply chains are actually being driven by many of the same commercial actors and regional governments that have been indiscriminately purchasing Congolese minerals for years, as documented by UN investigators,' he said.