On February 18, a dam failed and a Chinese-owned copper mine spilled 50 million liters of acidic effluent into the Kafue River, damaging the lives of millions of people as pollution was detected at least 100 kilometers downstream.

Water supply was cut off in nearby towns. Fish populations have been devastated. Groundwater has likely been contaminated. Crops have been destroyed. And huge amounts of livestock have been killed, crashing the livelihoods of farmers.

“Prior to the 18th of February this was a vibrant and alive river,” Sean Cornelius, a local resident, told the Associated Press. “Now everything is dead, it’s like a totally dead river. Unbelievable. Overnight, this river died.”

“People unknowingly drank contaminated water and ate affected maize. Now many are suffering from headaches, coughs, diarrhea, muscle cramps and even sores on their legs,” Nsama Musonda Kearns, executive director of the Care for Nature Zambia NGO, told Climate Home News.

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The company responsible for the February 18 spill is Sino-Metals Leach Zambia, which is majority owned by the state-run China Nonferrous Metals Industry Group (中國有色礦業集團公司). But it is not alone.

This year, four copper mining companies — one British and three Chinese — have been accused of releasing toxic mining waste into the Kafue River.

Chinese imports of Zambian copper were worth up to $4.05 billion in 2023, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade, and Chinese companies own many of the copper mines in the country.

Those companies’ records of environmental and worker safety have long been treated with skepticism. There have been clashes with miners over unfair pay and conditions and in 2018 there were riots against Chinese businesses. Zambia’s Ministry of Green Economy and Environment raised concerns about the Sino Metal dam that broke as far back as 2023.

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“We’re moving into a political domain in which people understand you need to grab resources — food resources, mineral resources — and you need to create a hinterland and you need to control those hinterlands …” Martin Mills, director of the Scottish Centre for Himalayan Research at the University of Aberdeen explained a recent Institute for Security and Development Policy online event.

China and its companies are by no means alone in doing this. But it is certainly a useful description of their operations in Zambia.

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“Chinese companies have a reputation locally and globally of having weak safety and environmental compliance, and this reputation is known before we give such companies the opportunity to mine or operate in Zambia,” Timothy Kamuzu Phiri, director and co-founder of Mizu Eco-Care, a Zambian environmental organisation that was one of the signatories to the statement mentioned above, [said].

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