Africa Mining: The Great Lakes gold rush fuels escalating violence

Escalating violence is being fuelled by smuggled gold, which often ends up in the hands of a leading Belgian refiner.

Diplomats and United Nations officials are becoming increasingly worried by the risk of another ‘great war’ as bad as that which devastated the country between 1998 and 2003.

Now as then, rebel factions are in an arms race fuelled by mineral exports as they use violence to try to break the political impasse caused by President Joseph Kabila’s failure to hold elections in 2016, and his apparent intention to stay in office for the foreseeable future.source: Africa Confidential