Ongoing conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has raised concerns in some quarters that violence in the region could spill south into the country’s mineral heartland of Katanga.
However, with the United States playing a key role in protecting its increasing commercial interests in the DRC, analysts tell African Business that instability in Katanga remains unlikely in the short-term, even if the DRC faces broader challenges to its mining sector.
In December last year, the M23 rebel group announced it had taken control of Uvira, a strategic port city on Lake Tanganyika near the Burundi border. The Rwandan-backed group, which has waged an offensive against the Congolese government since May 2022, captured the city following an advance that reportedly displaced around 200,000 people.
Although the Congolese army said it had retaken Uvira in January, fighting continues across North and South Kivu. Rather than ending the threat entirely, the rebels’ withdrawal has instead shifted clashes into more remote but still strategically significant areas.
As a key commercial hub linking the DRC to Burundi, Rwanda, and Tanzania, instability there has prompted concern that the conflict could widen. In particular, some analysts have raised the prospect of a southward push towards Katanga.
Katanga is as a vital global hub for copper and cobalt and is also home to minerals such as uranium, zinc, tin, and manganese. Roughly 50% of the world’s entire cobalt supply comes from Katanga alone. Indeed, of the ten largest cobalt mines in the world, nine are in Katanga. The region is economically vital for the DRC: some estimates suggest that minerals and metals account for up to 98% of the country’s total exports and 40% of its GDP in 2024.
Following the M23’s brief takeover of Uvira in late 2025, the International Crisis Group noted that many experts “believed that the rebels had the strength to press through South Kivu to Katanga, a mineral-rich region from where the central government derives the vast majority of its revenue.”
Political scientist Christian Moleka Kibamgu similarly said in December that “Katanga is strategically important because it is Kinshasha’s financial stronghold, including for the rebellion if they were to take control of the province.”
“But they could also find a kind of political support base there, given the hostility of some Katangan leaders towards the Kinshasha regime.”
Yet despite these concerns, most analysts assess that a meaningful advance towards Katanga remains unlikely in the near term – due in large part to the likelihood that external actors, particularly the United States, would act to prevent any serious threat to such a critical mining hub.
Crisis Group says that diplomatic pressure on the M23 and its Rwandan ally, especially from the US and Qatar, “has curbed their expansionist plans at key moments.”
“Later on, calls for a ceasefire as part of the Washington and Doha processes also likely tempered the belligerents’ ambitions, prodding them into a kind of war of attrition centred on parts of South Kivu, such as the vicinity of Uvira, and North Kivu, where clashes continue in Masisi, Rutshuru and Walikale territories. The external diplomatic intervention almost certainly averted a wider conflagration that might even have threatened Tshisekedi’s hold on power.”
Tresor Chovu, advisory board member at the Critical Minerals Fund, says that “the conflict has not yet reached Katanga and, with what is going on internationally, specifically with deals between the US and DRC in critical minerals, I don’t think that the rebels will be allowed to go further than where they are right now.”
US ramps up investments
The Trump administration has ramped up efforts to secure critical minerals supplies from the DRC and Africa more widely, as part of its attempts to challenge the dominance of China in the continent’s critical minerals supply chains.
In 2025, the US signed a “strategic partnership” with the DRC which sought to ensure that “mineral resources are managed responsibly for the long-term benefit of the Congolese people as well as the people of the United States of America.”
With Washington DC pledging increased security support and infrastructure investment in return for stronger access to critical minerals, there has also been a flurry of US private sector investment into Kinshasa.
In February, Orion Critical Mineral Consortium, a US-government backed mining investment fund, announced plans to buy a 40% stake in Glencore’s copper and cobalt projects in the DRC.
In March, Virtus Minerals, a US-based consortium run by former members of the US military and intelligence services, finalised the acquisition of Congolese cobalt and copper producer Chemaf.
Furthermore, in September last year, California-based KoBold Metals, which has been backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, struck a deal with the DRC to secure exploration permits and to digitise the DRC’s geological data. In May last year, KoBold Metals agreed a $1bn deal to acquire part of the DRC’s Manono lithium deposit, although this has been subject to legal disputes.
Chovu notes that this gives the US a significant incentive to halt any potential advance of the M23 group towards Katanga.
“The US has suggested that, because of its security agreement with the DRC, if a group were to disrupt American mining interests they would face consequences from the US,” he says.
To this end, in December last year, Rwandan President Paul Kagame signed a US-brokered peace deal with the DRC’s President Félix Tshisekedi in Washington DC. US President Donald Trump said it was “an amazing day: great day for Africa, great day for the world, and for these two countries.”
However, at the start of March, the US imposed sanctions on four senior officials over the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) for “blatant violations of Washington Peace Accords,” claiming that the RDF has supported the M23 in seizing “strategic mining sites in eastern DRC.”
US Treasury Secretary said the “Treasury will use all tools at its disposal to ensure that the parties to the Washington Accords uphold their obligations […] we expect the immediate withdrawal of Rwanda Defence Force troops, weapons, and equipment.”
Diplomatic pressure constrains M23
Corrado Cok, visiting research fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, tells African Business that “diplomatic pressure from the US, while not being sufficient to bring all the parties, especially Rwanda, into compliance has tempered the presence of the M23 in eastern DRC.”
Given this, and with the central DRC government also ramping up airstrikes against the M23, Cok says “unless there are any major changes, I would not expect an escalation that reaches Katanga.”
Although it appears unlikely that the DRC’s vital copper industry will be impacted by rebel activity in the short-term, the country could nonetheless face challenges as a result of the ongoing war in Iran.
Cok notes that “the mining sector is certainly very energy-intensive and that is where we could see an impact” by making extraction more expensive. With the DRC also facing fuel shortages, driven by a combination of panic buying and fears of price hikes, Chovu suggests that the mining sector could be impacted as exports tend to involve cargo being carried by truck.
“If the situation in Iran and in the Strait of Hormuz carries on, mining in the country could be impacted to a certain extent because the DRC does not produce much oil domestically – it is highly dependent on fuel imports,” he tells African Business.