The war in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), on the Central African country’s border with Rwanda, has caused at least six million deaths in the last twenty-nine years. Some estimate that almost half of them are children. From village after village, the stories coming out of the region are horrifying.

Today the talk is mainly of the so-called rebel group M23, which is destabilizing the region and occupying significant portions of Congolese territory. But the government of Rwanda is not only supplying arms and money to M23; it also has four thousand soldiers stationed in the DRC. Calling for a Rwandan withdrawal, United Nations secretary-general António Guterres said that his peacekeeping mission was facing a professional army that was better equipped than UN troops themselves.

What is Rwanda looking for in the DRC? This region is extremely rich in minerals and other natural resources. Take the example of coltan, which European multinational companies need for batteries, smartphones, and renewable energy, among other things, but which is also used in the aeronautics and military industries. The Kivu region of eastern Congo alone is thought to hold more than 60 percent of the world’s coltan reserves.