At least nine artisanal miners were killed on Wednesday 11 March in a landslide at the SAFI mining site, located near the mining town of Kakanda, in the Lubudi territory (Lualaba province), according to a detailed report by the Service d’Assistance et d’Encadrement de l’Exploitation Minière Artisanale et à Petite Échelle (SAEMAPE).
According to this official document, the accident occurred between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. in this mining area covered by Boss Mining’s PE 469 operating permit. Initial information gathered by the authorities indicates that several artisanal miners had entered the mine basin to extract ore.
According to SAEMAPE, for social reasons, artisanal miners are sometimes allowed access to certain parts of the mine between 5am and 9am. However, the report states that a group of miners entered the site with the agreement of armed individuals, under circumstances that remain unclear.
Alerted to the incident in the early afternoon, emergency teams were dispatched to the scene to rescue the victims. Nine bodies were taken to the Kakanda morgue, according to the provisional report released by SAEMAPE, which stated that search operations were still ongoing at the time of writing.
The provincial director of SAEMAPE also emphasized that his department currently has no permanent staff at the site, mainly due to the presence of armed elements. The document also mentions that the COMEMA cooperative was operating there without prior technical approval from the supervisory department.
Located about 100 kilometers east of Kolwezi, the SAFI mining site is in an area marked by artisanal copper and cobalt mining, often carried out in precarious conditions.
A technical mission is expected to visit the site on Thursday 12 March to establish the exact circumstances of the accident and draw up a final report.
For its part, local civil society is already reporting a higher death toll, with at least 11 fatalities, while the search continues under the rubble.
In its report, SAEMAPE makes several recommendations to prevent such accidents from happening again.
The supervisory service calls in particular for increased surveillance at the mining site, the permanent presence of technical agents to supervise artisanal activities, and clarification of the conditions of access for artisanal miners to industrial concessions.
SAEMAPE also recommends the involvement of the competent authorities to put an end to the presence of armed elements on the site, in order to ensure normal and secure technical supervision of mining activities.
Written by Noé KALEMEKO