SOMIKA mining company threatens the lives of the populations of Katanga (investigation)
The Evangelical Non-Violence Action Group (GANVE), a human rights and anti-corruption NGO, published on March 08 the report of its mission to investigate allegations of pollution in the neighborhood. SOMIKA and its surroundings by the Société minière du Katanga (SOMIKA), located 9 km from downtown Lubumbashi.
The GANVE organized a descent on the place, to investigate and verify the allegations of pollution as denounced by the victims consisting mainly of the
inhabitants of the SOMIKA district and its surroundings.
Indeed, the GANVE investigation confirms the allegations according to which SOMIKA planted its site above the KIMILOLO aquifer, just upstream of one of the water purification stations belonging to REGIDESO; a public company which serves a large part of the population living in the city of Lubumbashi with drinking water. This results in water pollution.
“For its treatment of metals, SOMIKA uses large quantities of acids, which by their flow seriously threaten the aquifer.
In addition, SOMIKA is installed on a site that is part of
the city’s ” green belt ” , where construction factory is banned, thus violating the laws and regulations in force in the DRC, ”says GANVE’s investigation report.
Confiding in GANVE, the victims of SOMIKA exposed their difficulties. To the question of knowing, what is the quality of the water which comes from your wells and the air which you breathe in this district? They responded as follows, the report reveals:
– The water coming from the wells in the SOMIKA neighborhood tastes of acid, weird, like liquid quinine, and the smell like lime, we have to travel a long distance to get drinking water, say the victims ;
– When we use this water to wash, it causes skin rashes especially in children, all the vegetables watered with this water are spoiled and dry completely, our poultry (chickens and ducks, etc.) are decimated by this water become toxic;
– The air we breathe here is very suffocating, for example: our children who study at the Saint FORTUNANT school complex regularly suffocate in class with their teachers, our children are always sick (cough, vision difficulties, respiratory), then the acids infiltrate the yard, so during recreation our children play in the acids, they threaten the school with collapse,
yet it is the only one in the neighborhood. Where are our children going to study?
The mission was able to observe that plants dry in the middle of the rainy season in the plots just behind SOMIKA, the SOMIKA fence wall built on a foundation of more or less 80 cm in width falls regularly, because it is eaten away by acids.
The victims showed the mission large holes of ± 40 meters in diameter, dug by SOMIKA in which the latter keeps its solid and even liquid discharges, unfortunately these holes are located in the middle of the dwelling houses, the content of these holes even overflows on the makeshift avenues traced in the neighborhood, and children come to play there.
The indifference of justice
The people of this corner no longer trust the justice system to resolve this situation. “The promoter of the Saint FORTUNANT school complex had already taken legal action since 2018 but so far the case has not progressed, it is blocked.
The victims showed the mission pipes, openings visible in the fence wall of SOMIKA, “some residents of the neighborhood had to abandon their houses and flee the neighborhood because the living conditions are very difficult”.
“We are going to die en masse if the state does not take action quickly,” say two women in a very threatening tone, “they told GANVE.
In addition, GANVE reminds the public that: the raw minerals that SOMIKA processes are transported in trucks with open bodies, coming from other urban centers (Likasi, Kipushi, Kambove, Kolwezi), while emphasizing that some minerals are uranium-bearing , with all the risks of contamination by inhalation and ingestion.
GANVE’s proposals
This NGO formulates 5 recommendations for the survival of the population of this area:
“- That SOMIKA be relocated to another site very far from the aquifer, very far from the population; – That SOMIKA compensate all the direct and indirect victims of its pollution; – That SOMIKA respect our rights as a community while ensuring also to respect the environment and the ecosystem; – That SOMIKA take care of the medical care of all the students and teachers of the Saint FORTUNANT school complex; – That the Congolese government send a team of epidemiologists and doctors to examine the victims and identify various pathologies caused by this pollution; – That REGIDESO scrupulously watch over the quality of the water it provides to the population “
As a reminder, the mining company of Katanga (SOMIKA) is a mineral processing company located in Lubumbashi, in the province of Haut Katanga, since February 2001, it is located on the KIPUSHI road ± 9 KM from downtown Lubumbashi .
