ReportWire

Tag: women and children

  • More than 200 killed in mine collapse in DR Congo

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    More than 200 people have been killed in a mine collapse in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, rebel authorities have said.

    The mine, in the town of Rubaya, gave way on Wednesday due to heavy rains, Lumumba Kambere Muyisa, spokesman for the North Kivu region’s rebel governor, told reporters. At the time, the death toll remained unclear.

    Women and children were among those mining coltan – a mineral used to manufacture electronics such as smartphones and computers – at the time.

    A former supervisor of the mine told the BBC the site was not properly maintained, making accidents more likely and hampering rescue efforts when they occur.

    He added that the fragile nature of the soil made the situation worse.

    Women, children and artisanal miners – those not officially employed by a mining firm – are among those killed in the collapse. Around 20 survivors are said to be receiving treatment in hospital.

    A source whose cousin died in the landslide expressed shock, saying it was “a big loss” for the family and community.

    “I didn’t believe he could pass away in such circumstances,” the source, who did not wish to be named, told the BBC, describing his cousin as a “courageous” and “ambitious” man whose main goal was to provide for his wife and two children.

    “I didn’t believe [he was dead] because investigations were still ongoing. His body wasn’t found after the accident, so I did have hope that he could be found alive. Unfortunately, some hours later, his body was discovered.”

    Governor Erasto Bahati Musanga, who was appointed by M23 rebels after seizing swathes of territory in North Kivu, visited survivors of the incident on Friday.

    Rubaya is one of a number of towns across North Kivu under the control of the M23, who international observers say are backed by neighbouring Rwanda.

    The mines in Rubaya hold about 15% of the world’s coltan supply and half of the DR Congo’s total deposits.

    The metallic ore contains tantalum, which is used to produce high-performance capacitors in a range of electronic devices, making it in high demand worldwide.

    When a BBC team visited the site in July 2025, they observed miners digging manually to source the precious mineral. Conditions at the site are very bad, with dangerous pits dotted around its vast expanse.

    Since 2024, the M23 rebels have been in control of the mines. The UN has accused the group of imposing taxes on the mining sector for their own benefit.

    The BBC has contacted the Congolese government in Kinshasa for comment.

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  • Hegseth says Wounded Knee massacre soldiers will keep Medals of Honor

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    Defense secretary Pete Hegseth has announced that 20 US soldiers who took part in the 1890 massacre of hundreds of Lakota men, women and children at Wounded Knee will keep the Medals of Honor that were awarded to them.

    The move is the latest in a number of contentious actions taken by the Trump administration to reinterpret US history.

    The long debate over the events at Wounded Knee includes a dispute over its characterization as a “battle” given that, according to historical records, the US army killed about 250 Lakota Sioux people – many of whom were unarmed women and children – despite fighters in the camp having surrendered.

    Related: Native public radio braces for ‘devastating and catastrophic’ Trump budget cuts

    “We’re making it clear that [the soldiers] deserve those medals,” Hegseth said, announcing the move in a video on social media on Thursday. Calling the men “brave soldiers”, he said a review panel had concluded in a report that the medals were justly awarded. “This decision is now final, and their place in our nation’s history is no longer up for debate.”

    Hegseth’s Democratic predecessor at the Pentagon, former defense secretary Lloyd Austin, ordered the review of the honors in 2024 after Congress called for it in the 2022 defense bill. Announcing the review, the Pentagon said Austin wanted to “ensure no awardees were recognized for conduct inconsistent with the nation’s highest military honor”.

    But in Thursday’s video, Hegseth – who has a history of Christian nationalist sympathies – said his predecessor had been “more interested in being politically correct than historically correct”. It is unclear if the report will be made public.

    Hegseth’s move also halts a push from Democratic lawmakers to revoke medals tied to the massacre at a camp on what is now the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. For Native Americans, the massacre marked a devastating climax to the tragedy of Indigenous removals from their land.

    “We cannot be a country that celebrates and rewards horrifying acts of violence against Native people,” senator Elizabeth Warren said in a statement earlier this year after reintroducing the proposed Remove the Stain Act.

    After the massacre, 19 soldiers from the seventh cavalry were awarded the Medal of Honor for their “bravery” and “gallantry” over actions ranging from rescuing fellow troops to efforts to “dislodge Sioux Indians” hiding in a ravine.

    Native Americans have long pushed for revocation of the medals. As time has gone on, the isolated site has become a place of mourning for many tribes, symbolizing the genocidal history of brutality and repression they have suffered at the hands of the US government. While Congress issued a formal apology in 1990 to the descendants of the massacre, the medals were left in place and no reparations offered.

    Thursday’s announcement is the latest move to sanitize the nation’s history taken by the Trump administration since Donald Trump signed an executive order in March titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”.

    In recent months, Hegseth has reverted the names of several US army bases back to Confederate-linked names, monuments to the Confederacy and Confederate figures have been restored, and he renamed a US navy ship that honored gay rights activist Harvey Milk.

    The Trump administration has also gone after cultural institutions like Smithsonian museums for exhibits it considers “unpatriotic”, purged and rewritten federal webpages related to topics including slavery, diversity and discrimination (some of which were later restored), and cut funding to grants to institutions that honor the lives of enslaved people.

    Some historians took to social media to denounce the administration’s latest move.

    “Only an administration intent on committing war crimes in the present and future would stoop to calling Wounded Knee a ‘battle’ rather than what it truly was,” Columbia University history professor Karl Jacoby posted on Bluesky.

    Jacoby added: “Fortunately, history does not work as Hegseth seems to believe. It is never “settled” and the government cannot (at least for now!) impose its interpretation of events on the rest of us.”

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