Qualla: Kolwezi

Kolwezi: Introduction

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gécamines (Zairian company), Public domain. There is a mineral called kolwezite -- a rare copper-cobalt compound of pink and green crystals -- and it was named after the only place on Earth where it was first identified. That the city of Kolwezi should lend its name to a mineral tells you everything about why this place exists. Founded in 1938 as the headquarters for the western mining operations of the Union Miniere du Haut Katanga, Kolwezi was not so much settled as engineered: the Belgian company cleared the acacias and miombo trees that grew atop the mineral deposits, then built a segregated town of wide streets and bungalows for Europeans alongside poorly constructed quarters for the Congolese workers who did the digging.

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Image: Gécamines (Zairian company) | Public domain

Kolwezi: Before the Mines

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zoocat56, CC BY-SA 4.0. Long before Belgian surveyors arrived, this land was called Keshila. In the 1730s, agents of the Lunda Empire named Xind and Konokesh conquered the area during the empire's eastward expansion under Yavu a Newej. The Lunda presence shaped the region for two centuries before coloni...

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Image: Zoocat56 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Kolwezi: Five Days in May

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tannoglou, CC BY-SA 4.0. On Saturday, May 13, 1978, ex-Katangese soldiers backed by Angola seized Kolwezi. The government of Zaire called on Belgium, France, Morocco, and the United States to restore order. France responded by deploying the 2e REP, an elite paratrooper unit of the French Foreign Legion, ...

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Image: Tannoglou | CC BY-SA 4.0

Kolwezi: Open Pits and Rolling Hills

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Esther kayombo, CC BY-SA 4.0. Modern Kolwezi spreads across rolling hills on an arid plain, its population approaching 573,000. The N39 highway cuts through the center on a northwest-southeast axis. Large open-pit cobalt mines scar the landscape to the west and north of the city center, while Rond Point de l'...

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Image: Esther kayombo | CC BY-SA 4.0

Kolwezi: The Cobalt Surge

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rob Mieremet / Anefo, CC BY 4.0. Kolwezi is above all a mining center -- copper, cobalt, uranium, radium, and lime deposits all lie beneath and around the city. The Musonoi mine, a set of open-cut pits, has produced copper and other metals since the 1940s. But it is cobalt that has transformed Kolwezi in recent ...

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Image: Rob Mieremet / Anefo | CC BY 4.0