In 2024, the mother of a 6-month-old baby described to the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) what happened to her son after one of Africa’s largest copper and cobalt processing complexes was built just a few hundred meters from their home.
“One evening, he started vomiting blood. He vomited more than three times, and then he died. That’s when I realized his death was caused by air pollution. I am not alone in this situation.” The mother and her child lived in Manomapia, in southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
The facility that allegedly sickened her child is owned by Tenke Fungurume Mining (TFM), a Congolese subsidiary of the Chinese company CMOC. The mine is set to provide 100,000 metric tons of copper to the United States.
The processing facility, roughly the size of 500 football fields, according to the EIA, is known as the “30K plant” because it can process 30,000 tons of mixed copper-cobalt ore per day. Both copper and cobalt are key components in lithium-ion batteries, used in electric vehicles, computers and smartphones.
“From the moment 30K began operating in 2023, people in Manomapia began complaining about really serious health issues, including vomiting and coughing up blood, life-threatening respiratory infections and maternal health complications,” Luke Allen, Africa program campaigner for EIA, told Mongabay in a phone call.
Allen spent three years investigating the issue, conducting air quality monitoring and reviewing from a nearby clinic, later analyzed by an independent expert. “We found that levels of sulfur dioxide (SO₂) in the air were far beyond the thresholds considered safe for human exposure by organizations such as the World Health Organization,” Allen said. “There was a significant increase in the number of people presenting with severe respiratory symptoms after the 30K facility began operating, particularly symptoms consistent with exposure to high levels of sulfur dioxide,” he added.
SO₂ is known to irritate eyes, mucous membranes, skin and the respiratory system. According to the United States National Library of Medicine, “There have been several case reports of human deaths following acute exposure to high concentrations of sulfur dioxide.”
Mongabay contacted Tenke Fungurume Mining for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication. However, in a letter sent to the EIA, the mining company stated, “TFM maintains emissions within safe limits that pose no health risks. No evidence establishes a causal link between the illness and the operations of the 30K Plant.”
However, Jacques Gardon, research director at France’s Research Institute for Development (IRD) and a specialist in mining pollution, told Mongabay that the minerals are being extracted under unsafe conditions. “The problem is that minerals must be sold at prices that allow them to be mined under proper conditions. What we are seeing here is more than an injustice, it’s a tragedy.”
Banner image: A child with red irritated eyes near the 30K plant in DRC. Image by Herman Kambala, courtesy of EIA / Arete
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