Vatican newspaper highlights suffering of DR Congo miners
June 25, 2026
L’Osservatore Romano devoted a prominent front-page article in its June 24 edition to the plight of miners in the epicenter of the Ebola crisis.
“In the artisanal mines of Mongbwalu, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, dozens of informal workers continue to search for gold to survive,” the newspaper reported. “Yet, lacking any safety measures, they risk contracting Ebola.”
Giada Aquilino’s article drew heavily on an Agence France-Presse wire story, “Necessity drives gold miners in DR Congo’s Ebola epicenter.”
“Landslides, suffocation, gunfights between rebels vying for a share of this wealth, and, once again, Ebola: workers often pay with their lives for a job that ought to be dignified but, in informal mines, is anything but,” Aquilino concluded.
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