A significant share of the cobalt mined in and around Kolwezi comes from creuseurs — artisanal diggers, often working with no more than a chisel, a head torch, and a sack — operating in pits and tunnels scattered across the periphery of the industrial concessions. The scenes have become familiar through journalism and supply-chain audits: men, women and sometimes children breaking ore by hand, with industrial mines visible in the distance.
A handful of researchers, journalists and NGO workers visit these sites with permission and local fixers; casual tourism is not appropriate and is potentially dangerous. The point of mentioning them is that they are unavoidable in any honest description of Kolwezi: the global electrical-vehicle transition runs on cobalt, much of that cobalt passes through these pits, and the working conditions are part of the city's reality.