WHAT'S HAPPENING IN CONGO IS A PROXY WAR!

In this clip, Congolese-British presenter, singer and instrumentalist Priscilla Toko uses an illustration by @mkadima01 (on Instagram) to drive home that the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a three-decade-long, foreign-instigated proxy war for minerals, not simply internal strife.

Moreover, Western states continue to support the DRC’s neighbour, Rwanda, despite overwhelming evidence that it has armed and trained the M23 militia that terrorises Congo. The result is that M23's attacks have 500,000 people displaced just in January, with over 7 million people internally displaced in three decades and approximately 6 million k*lled between 1998 and 2010.

Over 60 per cent of the world's cobalt comes from DRC's copper belt, yet the country remains one of the world's poorest, with over 73 per cent of Congolese people living on less than $2.15 a day.

Video credit: @priscilladinatoko (Instagram)

Sources:

https://www.cfr.org/blog/why-cobalt-mining-drc-needs-urgent-attention

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/drc/overview

https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/violence-democratic-republic-congo

https://www.caritas.org/2010/02/six-million-dead-in-congos-war

https://republic.com.ng/october-november-2023/congo-cobalt-genocide/

https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/01/29/rwanda-backed-rebels-capture-goma/

https://africanarguments.org/2024/04/europes-indifference-to-rwandas-atrocities-is-costing-congolese-lives/

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/feb/14/why-us-and-uk-fund-rwanda-while-atrocities-mount-up-in-drc-vava-tampa