Blog

Today, the Enough Project’s Raise Hope for Congo campaign launched the first-ever Instagram petition that will be delivered to the winning U.S. Presidential candidate, urging the next administration to make the conflict in eastern Congo a top priority. Activists across the U.S. and Europe have joined the petition by Tweeting photos of themselves holding signs with “Vote for Congo” messages using the hashtag #Vote4Congo ...

The Satellite Sentinel Project acquired imagery of the explosion that rocked Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, just after midnight on October 24, 2012. Though the source of the explosion and fire were not immediately apparent, expert analysis of DigitalGlobe satellite imagery shows evidence to indicate that the explosions were in fact the result of aerial bombardment ...

Gunmen apparently targeting prominent doctor and Congolese activist Denis Mukwege left a security guard at Mukwege’s home dead and a community shaken. The attack occurred Thursday evening in the eastern Congo city of Bukavu, where Mukwege’s Panzi Hospital has long treated some of the region’s most vulnerable patients—women suffering from fistula ...

A weekly round-up of must-read stories, posted every Friday ...

Despite the news this week that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers have filed a lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission over the conflict minerals regulation, both companies and activists continue to fight for progress ...

The Lord's Resistance Army. Violence in eastern Congo, and between and within Sudan and South Sudan. These conflicts are some of the worst facing our world today. What else do they have in common? ...

Darfur Women Action Group is hosting an event this weekend in Washington, D.C., focused on women and genocide. Niemat Ahmadi is the founder of the group, and she wrote this guest blog post about why the ongoing tragedy in Darfur demands such an event ...

The conflict-gold rush is thriving in eastern Congo. Recent U.S. legislation and supply-chain pressure from tech companies has made it difficult for armed groups in the region to sell the 3-T minerals—tin, tantalum, and tungsten—and as a result, rebels and army commanders have increasingly turned to gold. In a report released today, the Enough Project looks at the illegal conflict-gold trade in eastern Congo that is fueling one of the most violent conflicts in the world ...

Gold smuggled from eastern Congo’s war zone is now the most lucrative conflict mineral and is ending up at jewelry stores and banks, according to a new investigative report by the Enough Project. The study found that following a 65 percent drop in profits from the conflict minerals tin, tungsten, and tantalum, armed groups have increasingly turned to smuggling the fourth conflict mineral, gold, to generate income that finances mass atrocities in eastern Congo. The armed groups use poorly paid miners, who work in dangerous conditions, including thousands of children as young as eight years old. The study maps out ...

This is the first of two papers on the illegal conflict-gold trade from eastern Congo that is fueling one of the most violent conflicts in the world. This paper tracks the transnational trade from mines in eastern Congo to consumers. The second paper will map a way to resolve this problem by setting out recommendations to formalize the trade, cut down conflict-gold smuggling, and create jobs to provide living wages to Congolese miners ...