Security Force Incident Log: Violence at the Mines

Why We Track Security Force Incidents

Mining kills people in ways that never appear in production statistics. The deaths documented in this tracker are not the deaths from tunnel collapses, toxic exposure, or equipment failures that constitute the conventional understanding of mining fatalities. These are deaths inflicted by the security apparatus that surrounds industrial mining operations: soldiers, police officers, and private security guards whose mandate is to protect mineral assets and who, in practice, use lethal force against the people who live near those assets.

The Lobito Corridor traverses some of the most mineral-rich and heavily guarded terrain on Earth. The copper-cobalt belt of southeastern DRC, the Zambian Copperbelt, and the rail corridors connecting them to the Atlantic port of Lobito host an industrial security infrastructure that includes elements of the Congolese national army (Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo, or FARDC), the Congolese National Police (PNC), the Mining Police (Police des Mines), private security companies operating under contract to mining firms, and informal armed groups whose relationship to both the state and mining companies is deliberately opaque.

This security architecture exists to protect assets valued in the tens of billions of dollars. It operates in a context where an estimated 200,000 or more artisanal miners depend on access to mineral deposits that industrial mining companies claim as their concessions. The collision between industrial security and artisanal survival produces a steady, largely undocumented pattern of violence: shootings, beatings, sexual assault, arbitrary detention, theft of minerals and personal property, and destruction of homes and equipment. Most incidents are never reported. Most victims never receive medical treatment, let alone justice. Most perpetrators are never identified, let alone prosecuted.

This tracker exists to make visible what is designed to be invisible. Our methodology combines field reporting from community-based monitors in the DRC and Zambia; civil society documentation from organisations including the Centre Carter, RAID, Global Witness, and Amnesty International; medical records from clinics near mine sites that treat gunshot and assault victims; media reporting from Congolese and Zambian journalists; whistleblower submissions through our secure reporting channel; and cross-referencing with corporate sustainability reports, VPSHR annual reports, and DFI compliance records.

Incident Database: 2018–2026

The following table documents major security force incidents at mine sites along the Lobito Corridor. This is not a comprehensive record of every act of violence. The actual number of incidents is almost certainly several times higher than what appears here. These are the incidents we have been able to verify through multiple sources. They represent the documented surface of a much deeper pattern.

Incident Types and Patterns

Security force violence at mine sites along the corridor follows identifiable patterns. Understanding these patterns is essential to prevention. What appears as random violence is, in most cases, structurally predictable. The same types of incidents repeat at the same sites, during the same seasons, involving the same categories of perpetrators and victims. This is not chaos. It is a system.

Artisanal Miner Evictions

Evictions of artisanal miners from industrial mining concessions constitute the single largest category of security force incidents along the corridor, accounting for approximately 65% of all documented cases. The pattern is consistent across sites and companies. Artisanal miners enter concession areas — often areas they mined before industrial concessions were granted — to extract copper, cobalt, or other minerals. Mining companies regard this as trespassing and theft. Security forces are deployed to remove them. The evictions routinely involve live ammunition, tear gas, beatings, destruction of mining equipment and temporary shelters, and confiscation of mined minerals.

The eviction cycle is self-perpetuating. Artisanal miners are removed from a site by force. They return within days or weeks because they have no alternative livelihood. Security forces conduct another eviction. More people are hurt or killed. The miners return again. This cycle has been repeating at sites like KCC, Tenke Fungurume, and KOV for over a decade. It does not reduce artisanal mining. It merely ensures that artisanal mining occurs under conditions of violence and fear, which in turn ensures that artisanal miners have no leverage to negotiate safer working conditions, fair prices for their minerals, or legal recognition of their activities.

Community Protest Suppression

Community protests against mining operations — over displacement, environmental contamination, unfulfilled development commitments, or employment grievances — account for approximately 15% of documented incidents. These protests are typically met with a security response that treats civilian grievances as security threats. Police and private security deploy tear gas, rubber bullets, and in some cases live ammunition against unarmed protestors. Community leaders are identified and subsequently targeted for intimidation or arrest.

Trespasser Shootings

The term "trespasser" in the context of DRC mining conceals a fundamental injustice. People who lived on land before concessions were granted, who mined that land for generations, and who have no formal title because the DRC land registration system does not extend to their communities are classified as trespassers when they enter areas that have been fenced and guarded by companies that arrived after them. The legal designation is technically accurate under Congolese mining law. The moral designation is not.

Forced Relocations

Forced relocations differ from the displacement documented in our Displacement Tracker in that they involve the direct application of force by security personnel, rather than administrative displacement processes, however inadequate. In forced relocation incidents, security forces physically remove families from their homes, often at gunpoint, without prior notice, without compensation, and without provision of alternative housing. Homes are demolished to prevent return. Personal property is destroyed or confiscated.

Intimidation of Activists and Journalists

The documentation of security force abuses at mine sites depends on the willingness of local journalists, civil society activists, and community monitors to observe and report. That willingness is systematically targeted. Our database records 18 incidents of intimidation directed at individuals documenting mining-related abuses, including physical assault, arbitrary detention, confiscation of recording equipment, threats against family members, and surveillance. Several of our own community monitors have received direct threats.

Company Security Profiles

Each major mining company operating along the Lobito Corridor maintains a security apparatus whose composition, governance, and use-of-force record differs. The following profiles summarise what we know about each company's security arrangements, documented incidents, and accountability measures. Ratings reflect our independent assessment based on the evidence documented in this tracker.

Glencore (KCC, Kamoto, Mutanda)

CMOC (Tenke Fungurume Mining)

ERG (KOV, Metalkol)

First Quantum Minerals (Kansanshi, Sentinel)

Ivanhoe Mines (Kamoa-Kakula)

Barrick Gold (Lumwana)

The FARDC Problem: Military at the Mines

The single most important structural driver of lethal security force violence at mine sites along the Lobito Corridor is the deployment of the Congolese national army — the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC) — to protect industrial mining operations. This deployment is the source of the majority of documented fatalities in this tracker. It is also the feature of the corridor's security architecture that is most resistant to reform.

The FARDC is deployed at mine sites under arrangements between mining companies and the Congolese military hierarchy. These arrangements typically involve direct payment by mining companies to military commanders responsible for mine security. The payments take various forms: formal contracts with the Ministry of Defence, informal payments to local military commanders, provision of food and housing for deployed soldiers, and payment for fuel and vehicle maintenance. The precise financial terms of these arrangements are not publicly disclosed by any mining company operating along the corridor.

The chain of command problem is central to the FARDC question. When a mining company requests FARDC deployment to clear artisanal miners from its concession, and FARDC soldiers subsequently use lethal force against unarmed artisanal miners, who is responsible? The mining company did not fire the weapon. The military commander gave the operational orders. The soldier pulled the trigger. The mining company made the request and funded the deployment. Each party can point to the others as bearing primary responsibility. This diffusion of accountability is not accidental. It is the purpose of the arrangement.

Under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, a company that "causes or contributes to" adverse human rights impacts through its activities is responsible for providing remedy. Requesting, funding, and facilitating the deployment of military forces that subsequently commit human rights abuses constitutes "contributing to" those abuses under any reasonable interpretation. Mining companies that deploy FARDC soldiers at their concessions and then disclaim responsibility for FARDC conduct are applying a legal interpretation of "contributing to" that no international tribunal would accept.

The FARDC's behaviour at mine sites reflects its broader institutional character. The Congolese army has been documented by the UN Group of Experts on the DRC, Human Rights Watch, and numerous other organisations as being involved in systematic human rights abuses including extrajudicial killings, sexual violence, looting, and illegal taxation. Deploying this force to manage civilian interactions at mine sites is not a security solution. It is a human rights hazard with a gun.

Private Security Companies

In addition to state security forces, mining companies along the corridor contract private security companies (PSCs) to protect their operations. The PSC landscape in the DRC and Zambia is a mixture of international firms and local providers, with widely varying standards of training, governance, and use-of-force discipline.

International Providers

G4S (now Allied Universal), the world's largest private security company, provides security services at multiple mine sites along the corridor. G4S has been present in the DRC mining sector for over a decade and provides both static guard services and mobile patrol capabilities. The company states that it trains security personnel in human rights standards and proportionate use of force. However, G4S personnel are implicated in several incidents in our database, including assaults on artisanal miners and destruction of artisanal mining equipment.

Securitas, the Swedish multinational, has a growing presence in the DRC mining security sector. Other international providers operating at corridor-linked sites include Brinks and several smaller firms specialising in extractive industry security. International PSCs generally have written use-of-force policies that align with the Voluntary Principles and the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Providers (ICoC). The question is whether those policies are implemented on the ground by guards earning $150–300 per month in high-pressure environments.

Local Providers

The majority of private security personnel at mine sites along the corridor are employed by local Congolese or Zambian security companies. These firms are typically smaller, less regulated, and less transparent than their international counterparts. Training standards are lower. Written use-of-force policies, where they exist, are less detailed. Supervision is less rigorous. Pay is lower, increasing vulnerability to corruption and reducing the company's leverage over guard behaviour.

Local PSCs in the DRC operate under a regulatory framework that is, on paper, reasonably comprehensive. The DRC's private security regulation requires licensing, prohibits private security personnel from carrying military weapons, and mandates training standards. In practice, enforcement is weak. Unlicensed security companies operate openly. Some private security personnel carry weapons that exceed regulatory limits. Training requirements are not independently verified.

The Hybrid Problem

The most dangerous security arrangements at mine sites along the corridor are hybrid operations in which private security and FARDC soldiers operate jointly. Joint operations blur the lines of accountability. When a joint force of private guards and soldiers evicts artisanal miners, and someone is shot, the company can attribute the shooting to the FARDC rather than its private contractor. The FARDC can point to the company's request as the basis for its deployment. Neither accepts responsibility. The victim receives no remedy.

Our database records at least 12 incidents involving joint private security/FARDC operations. These hybrid operations are disproportionately lethal: they account for approximately 35% of documented fatalities despite representing a smaller share of total incidents. The combination of private security logistics and FARDC firepower creates an escalation dynamic in which evictions that begin as private security actions are reinforced by military force when resistance is encountered.

Voluntary Principles Compliance

The Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights (VPSHR), established in 2000 through a multi-stakeholder initiative involving governments, companies, and NGOs, provide the primary international framework for managing the security-human rights interface at extractive industry operations. The Voluntary Principles require companies to conduct risk assessments, engage with communities, ensure security forces are trained in human rights standards, and report on security-related incidents.

Corridor Company VPSHR Status

Only four of the twelve major mining companies operating along the corridor — Glencore, FQM, Ivanhoe, and Barrick — are VPSHR signatories. CMOC, the operator of one of the largest and most conflict-prone concessions in the DRC, is not a member. ERG, whose operations have been associated with both fatalities and journalist intimidation, is not a member. The eight non-signatory companies operate under no internationally recognised security-human rights framework beyond the general principles of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

Reporting vs. Reality

Even among VPSHR signatories, the gap between reporting and reality is vast. Glencore's annual VPSHR reports acknowledge "security incidents" at its DRC operations but provide no specific casualty figures, no identification of perpetrators, no description of circumstances, and no detail on remediation. The reports are written in a language designed to satisfy the formal requirements of VPSHR membership without providing the transparency needed to drive accountability. A VPSHR report that omits the information needed to assess security force conduct is not a transparency exercise. It is a compliance exercise. There is a difference.

FQM and Barrick provide somewhat more detail in their VPSHR reporting, including aggregate incident counts and descriptions of training programmes. But neither company publishes incident-level data that would allow independent verification of their security force conduct. The VPSHR does not require independent verification of company reports. This is its fundamental structural weakness. A voluntary reporting framework without verification is an invitation to selective disclosure.

Artisanal Miners: The Most Vulnerable

The people most likely to be killed, injured, beaten, detained, or robbed by security forces at mine sites along the Lobito Corridor are artisanal miners. They are also the people whose labour is most essential to the global supply chains that the corridor is designed to serve. This is the central paradox of security force violence in the DRC mining sector: the people who dig the cobalt that powers the energy transition are the same people who are shot by the guards who protect the mines that supply the energy transition. The supply chain does not merely tolerate this violence. It depends on the conditions that produce it.

Scale of Artisanal Mining

An estimated 200,000 or more artisanal miners operate in the DRC's copper-cobalt belt. Some work in formalised cooperatives under the frameworks established by the DRC Mining Code 2018 and regulated by the Service d'Assistance et d'Encadrement du Small Scale Mining (SAEMAPE). Many more work informally, without cooperative membership, outside regulated zones, and without any legal recognition of their activity. The distinction between "formalised" and "informal" is critical for security force interactions: formalised miners working in designated artisanal zones have legal standing that should, in theory, protect them from eviction. Informal miners on industrial concessions have no such standing, even if they mined the same ground before the concession was granted.

Eviction Patterns

Evictions of artisanal miners from industrial concessions follow seasonal and operational patterns that are predictable and therefore preventable. The dry season (May through September) sees the highest level of artisanal mining activity, as ground conditions are more favourable and access to remote sites is easier. This is also the period when mining companies intensify clearance operations, producing a predictable spike in security force incidents. Our data shows that approximately 60% of documented artisanal miner fatalities occur during the May–September period.

The operational pattern of evictions is also predictable. Companies issue notices (often in French, a language many artisanal miners do not read) warning that artisanal mining on the concession is prohibited. A grace period may or may not be provided. Security forces — FARDC, mine police, or private security — then conduct sweep operations, moving through the concession to remove artisanal miners. These operations typically begin before dawn. They involve the destruction of artisanal mining infrastructure: hand tools, washing equipment, temporary shelters, and stockpiled minerals. Artisanal miners who resist or are too slow to flee are beaten or shot.

The minerals confiscated during evictions represent the accumulated labour of artisanal miners and their families. A bag of cobalt ore or copper concentrate may represent weeks of work. Its confiscation during an eviction is, in effect, wage theft at gunpoint. No mining company has disclosed what happens to minerals confiscated from artisanal miners during eviction operations. Whether these minerals enter the company's processing chain, are sold by security personnel for personal profit, or are destroyed is unknown. The silence on this question is telling.

Legal Rights Under DRC Mining Code

The DRC Mining Code 2018 provides a legal framework for artisanal mining that, if implemented, would significantly reduce the violence documented in this tracker. The Code requires the designation of Zones d'Exploitation Artisanale (ZEAs) — artisanal exploitation zones — where artisanal miners can operate legally. It requires mining companies to support the formalisation of artisanal mining and to negotiate access arrangements with artisanal miners on their concessions. It establishes SAEMAPE as the regulatory authority for artisanal mining.

In practice, ZEA designation has been slow and politically contested. Mining companies have resisted the designation of ZEAs within or adjacent to their concessions, fearing that legal artisanal mining zones will attract more artisanal miners rather than fewer. SAEMAPE is underfunded and understaffed. The formalisation process is bureaucratically complex and financially burdensome for artisanal miners who earn $2–8 per day. The gap between the Mining Code's vision of ordered, regulated artisanal mining and the reality of violent evictions is the gap between legislative ambition and institutional capacity.

The Cobalt Connection

The artisanal miners who face security force violence along the Lobito Corridor are disproportionately concentrated in cobalt-producing areas. Cobalt is the mineral most closely associated with the energy transition: it is a critical component of lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles and energy storage systems. The DRC produces approximately 70% of the world's cobalt, and a significant share of that production comes from artisanal mining.

This creates a direct connection between security force violence at mine sites in the DRC and the clean energy products sold in European and American markets. The cobalt in an electric vehicle battery may have been mined by an artisanal miner who was subsequently beaten or shot by security forces protecting the concession where that cobalt was found. The EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and the EU Battery Regulation both require supply chain due diligence that should, in theory, capture these connections. Whether they will do so in practice depends on whether downstream buyers ask the questions that this tracker is designed to answer.

Legal Framework and Accountability

The legal framework governing the use of force by security personnel at mine sites is clear. The practice is not. Understanding why 156 documented incidents have produced only two accountability cases requires understanding both the applicable law and the structural impediments to its enforcement.

DRC Criminal Law

Congolese criminal law prohibits murder, assault, arbitrary detention, destruction of property, and theft. These prohibitions apply to all persons, including FARDC soldiers, police officers, and private security personnel. The DRC penal code does not provide immunity for security forces who commit crimes in the course of mine protection duties. In principle, every fatality documented in this tracker constitutes a crime under DRC law that should be investigated, prosecuted, and punished.

In practice, the DRC criminal justice system is incapable of processing mine-site security cases at scale. Courts in Haut-Katanga and Lualaba provinces are understaffed, under-resourced, and subject to political interference. Prosecutors depend on police cooperation to conduct investigations, creating a circular problem when police are themselves perpetrators. FARDC soldiers are subject to military justice, which operates through a separate court system with even less transparency than civilian courts. Victims and witnesses face intimidation, and those who file complaints risk retaliation. The two accountability cases in our database — both involving partial internal reviews rather than criminal convictions — confirm that the justice system is functionally unavailable to victims of security force violence at mine sites.

International Standards

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council in 2011, establish that companies have a responsibility to respect human rights throughout their operations and supply chains. This responsibility includes ensuring that security arrangements do not result in human rights abuses. Under the UNGPs, companies that "contribute to" human rights abuses through their security arrangements are responsible for providing remedy.

The Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights provide more specific guidance. The VPSHR require companies to: conduct security and human rights risk assessments; include human rights provisions in contracts with private security providers; ensure public security forces deployed at their operations are trained in human rights; investigate credible allegations of human rights abuses by security forces; and report on security and human rights performance. These requirements are clear. Their enforcement depends entirely on the voluntary commitment of member companies, which is to say, their enforcement depends on the goodwill of the very parties whose conduct needs to be constrained.

Corporate Complicity Doctrine

International criminal law recognises the doctrine of corporate complicity: companies can bear legal responsibility for human rights abuses committed by others if the company aided, abetted, or otherwise facilitated those abuses. The International Commission of Jurists has identified three forms of corporate complicity: direct complicity (the company actively participates in the abuse), beneficial complicity (the company benefits from abuses committed by others), and silent complicity (the company fails to act on knowledge of ongoing abuses).

Mining companies that request FARDC deployment to their concessions, fund that deployment, and benefit from the eviction of artisanal miners whose removal is accomplished through lethal force meet the criteria for both direct and beneficial complicity under this framework. The question is not whether the legal theory supports accountability. The question is whether any jurisdiction with the power to enforce accountability will apply it.

Recommendations

The following recommendations are addressed to the actors with the power to change the security conditions at mine sites along the Lobito Corridor. They are drawn directly from the evidence in this tracker and from international best practice in the management of security forces at extractive industry operations.

To Mining Companies

To Development Finance Institutions

To the DRC Government

To Civil Society and International Community

How to Report

This tracker depends on information from people who witness or experience security force violence at mine sites. If you are an artisanal miner, a community member, a mine worker, a security guard, a journalist, a civil society worker, or anyone with information about security force conduct at mining operations along the Lobito Corridor, your information can contribute to this documentation and ultimately to accountability.

Every report is reviewed. Every verified report is included in this database. We do not publish individual identities without explicit consent. We do not share raw reports with companies, governments, or security forces. We take the safety of our sources seriously because their safety is the foundation of our work.

Related Database Pages

• Displacement Tracker
• Child Labour Monitor
• Kolwezi
• Tenke Fungurume
• Kamoto Copper Company
• Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights
• UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
• EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive

This tracker reflects Lobito Corridor's independent assessment based on field reports, civil society documentation, medical records, media reporting, whistleblower submissions, and public disclosures. Every incident in this database has been verified through at least two independent sources unless otherwise noted. Casualty figures represent confirmed cases; actual figures are likely higher. This tracker does not constitute a judicial finding. Perpetrator identification reflects the best available evidence and may be contested. Companies and governments that wish to provide corrections, additional data, or responses are invited to contact security-incidents@lobitocorridor.com. All corrections and responses are published transparently. This tracker does not constitute legal advice. Victims of security force violence should seek independent legal counsel.