(AFP / AFP)

It’s not just conflict diamonds, conflicts minerals in general are big business in some African countries. Even the more common minerals used to make chips for everyday technology like cellular phones are tied to civil unrest in countries like Democratic Republic of Congo. According to a recent report in The Telegraph,

A tiny portion of the price you paid for your smartphone, tablet or laptop could have been funneled to warlords in the Congo, lengthening a war that has already cost six million deaths – the deadliest conflict since WWII. It could also have led to slavery and systematic rape.

The central African nation’s population of 75m has endured decades of fighting. Officially, the Second Congo War is over, but conflict rages to this day – and control of mineral wealth is at its very centre.

As recently as the 1960s the country was behind only South Africa on the continent in terms of industry and had a thriving mining sector. War caused some businesses to pull out of the region and dramatically reduced output, but the country is still the world’s largest producer of cobalt ore. It also mines in huge quantity four materials which are vital to producing modern electronic devices: tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold.

“There’s a little bit of Congo in your pocket. Everybody is connected to Congo,” said Sasha Lezhnev, from genocide charity the Enough Project.

And it is warlords who are making hundreds of millions of dollars a year from the mines, not the people who work in them, and us who drive demand by buying tablets, smartphones and myriad other devices. Virtually all electronic devices include these elements.

The article also goes on to point out that American companies are not the only ones profiting from pain, but Chinese companies are also doing big business in Congo.