Overview
- Provincial interior minister Roy Kaumba Mayonde confirmed 32 bodies recovered, while SAEMAPE estimated around 40 and an agency official told Reuters 49, with higher figures unverified as recovery continues.
- Authorities had banned access because of heavy rain and landslide risk, yet large numbers of informal miners entered and crowded a bridge over a flooded trench.
- SAEMAPE reported that soldiers securing the site fired shots that set off a rush toward the bridge; the military has not issued a public response.
- Operations at the Kalando site were suspended, and human-rights groups called for an independent investigation into the role of security forces.
- The disaster underscores persistent safety and governance failures in Congo’s artisanal mining, which employs an estimated 1.5–2 million people and supplies key cobalt to global markets.