Inside your phone, it is likely to be a trivial metal. The metal is began to bury on the earth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The war there is currently erupting.

It may even be directly related to the M23 rebel group that has become a global headline news this week.

The tactile in the device is less than half of the average garden pea, but it is essential for the effective operation of smartphones and almost all other complex electronic devices.

This rare, blue-gray, and shiny metal unique features-including the ideal material that can be kept at high charge when running within the temperature-make it an ideal material for temporarily stored energy.

It is also mining in Rwida, Brazil and Nigeria, but the global supply of this element is at least 40 % or even more.

The current wave of battle has lasted for several months, but the rebels attracted people’s attention with the attack and attack center of Goma on Sunday. The city bordering Rwanda is the regional center of the mining business

In the past year, M23 has made rapid progress in the rich mineral rich minerals east of the Congo Dr. East, and the region has excavated COLTAN (extracted from Taltarem ore).

Just like other armed groups operating in the region, M23 was originally defended by defending the rights of the right to be threatened. However, with the expansion of territory, mining has become a key source of income, paying fighters and weapons.

Last April, it occupied Rubaya, a town in the center of the country’s island industry.

Mineral extraction in this area is not in the hands of multinational companies-opposite, thousands of people work in honeycomb open pits, under extremely unsafe and unhealthy conditions, honeycomb-shaped landscapes or underground.

They are part of a complex but informal network. It sees the rocks that use shovels from the ground, bring it to the ground, crushed, washed, taxed, sold out, and then further purified and eventually smelted Essence

Once M23 moved into Rubaya, the rebels established a “similar state government” that the United Nations group of experts said, issued a license to Digggers and Traders, and requested to pay an annual fee of $ 25 (£ 20) and $ 250, respectively. M23 doubles the salary of DIGGERS to ensure that they continue to work.

It operates the area in a monopoly to ensure the threat of arrest and detention, and only its authorized merchants can carry out business.

The M23 also charges a fee of $ 7 per kilogram of nobles. The United Nations expert group estimates that the tax taxation tax levied from Luba a month is about $ 800,000 per month. It is almost certain that this money is used to fund the rebellion.

There is a question mark on how to enter the global supply chain from the ore extracted from the M23 control area into the global supply chain.

UN experts said that neighboring Rwanda is deemed to support M23 and is the center of the answer.

Theoretically, a certification plan (called an innovative tin supply chain program (ITSCI)) should mean that the content of entering the phone and other electronic devices is not from atrocities in the conflict field.

The United States’ Dodd-Frank Act passed in 2010 to ensure that it is not unintentional violence to ensure that it is unintentional. funds.

But ITSCI has been criticized.

Ken Matthysen, an IPI of the independent research team’s IPI, emphasized that the decentralized nature of many small mines makes it difficult for local authorities to accurately monitor what happened everywhere.

Mr. Matthysen said that its label should be placed on the bag of the mine itself to prove the origin of the internal minerals, but it is usually transported to a collection point, where it is difficult to track the actual position of the ore.

He added that corruption may also have a problem.

“Even those who accused the state agents selling labels to traders, because they did not have a good life. Therefore, the traders then marked the bags by the East of the Congo Dr. Congo.”

ITSC ​​I did not respond to the BBC’s comment request, but in the past, it had defended its records, saying that the plan had accepted strict independent audits. It is also praised for bringing “the prosperity of hundreds of thousands of small miners”.

As far as Rubaya is concerned, shortly after M23 entered the town, itsci suspended it.

Nevertheless, the organization still manifests to continue exporting to the nobles.

UN experts draw a Circuit shrinking route to show how to transport to the boundary of the Rwanda. Then transfer it to the “heavy truck” and need to expand the road to accommodate them.

Rwanda has its own colonial mines, but experts say that unknown Koltan and Rwanda’s output are mixed together, leading to “pollution of supply chain.”

Matthysen said that M23 had participated in the aristocratic business before occupying Rubaya-setting up obstacles and charging fees to cross them.

He told BBC: “Many of these mineral trade has been controlled by M23 controlled areas. Therefore, even so, Rwanda is still profitable in the instability of Dr. Congo. We have seen that the export batch of Rwanda has increased.”

Data from the US Geological Survey show that Rwida’s noble exports increased by 50 % between 2022 and 2023.

In order to defend the position of Rwanda, the government spokesman Yolande Makolo reiterated to the Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that her own country has minerals and refined capabilities.

She added: “To solve a problem such as the Democratic Republic of the East Congo, a persecution community is fighting for its rights and turning (IT) into a material interest problem. This is very cynical.”

Paul Kagame, the President of Rwanda, also rejected the report of UN experts to talk about their “professional knowledge”.

Over the years, most parts of the Dr. Congo Dr. East have been destroyed due to conflict, and have raised questions about who benefited and whether the armed groups have been dug from there.

In order to emphasize this issue and its connection with the smartphone industry, the Congo government filed a criminal lawsuit in France and Belgium at the end of last year at the end of last year, accusing it of using “conflict minerals”.

Apple raised his charges and pointed out that since the beginning of 2024, due to the continuous upgrading and certification difficulties of conflicts, it stopped Dr. Congo and Dr. Rwandan Tantamum.

Other companies are not clear, which means that because M23 has seized more territories, these small pieces of TANTALUM can still enter the device we rely on from the minings they control.