A rampaging rebel group has claimed the capture of another mining town in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a little over a week after it took control of the region’s largest city Goma.

Clashes between the rebel coalition Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC) and Congolese forces have left more than 3,000 people dead in less than two weeks, according to DRC’s government.

The AFC, of which the M23 armed group – which claims to defend the interest of minority Rwandophone communities – is a key member, took over resource-rich Nyabibwe last week after Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu, fell on January 27.

It comes less than a year after the rebels seized Rubaya, a mining hub also in the country’s east, which harbors one of the world’s largest deposits of coltan, a valuable mineral used in the production of smartphones.

Here’s what you need to know.

Is my phone fueling the conflict?

For decades, DRC, a Central African nation of more than 100 million people, has grappled with bloody militia violence, including ethnic and resource-driven armed rebellion by M23 and dozens of other armed groups.

Roughly the size of Western Europe, the war-riven country is endowed with vast mineral wealth, including the world’s largest reserves of cobalt and coltan – both critical to the production of electronics. Cobalt is used to produce batteries that power cell phones and electric vehicles, while coltan is refined into tantalum, which has a variety of applications in phones and other devices.

However, according to the World Bank “most people in DRC have not benefited from this wealth,” and the country ranks among the five poorest nations in the world.

Much of DRC’s mineral wealth is split between its government and armed groups who control swathes of the resource-rich east.

“It’s not a coincidence that the zones occupied by the rebels are mining areas,” Okenda said, adding that global demand for cobalt and coltan has fueled the crisis.

“It takes money to wage war. Access to mining sites finances the war,” he added.

Why do the rebels want the minerals?

But a top United Nations official has an idea.

Bintou Keita, the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative to the DRC, told the Security Council in a September briefing that coltan trade from Rubaya’s mines is estimated to supply over 15 percent of global tantalum production and generates an estimated $300,000 in revenue a month for M23.

M23 denied these claims, insisting its presence in Rubaya was “solely humanitarian.”

Much of the international community, including the Congolese government, has accused neighboring Rwanda of backing M23 and aiding the plunder of DRC minerals.

UN experts believe that an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 Rwandan soldiers are supervising and supporting M23 fighters in eastern DRC, outnumbering the rebel group’s forces in the country. A December report by the UN Group of Experts on the DRC revealed that “at least 150 tons of coltan were fraudulently exported to Rwanda and mixed with Rwandan production.”

Rwanda is one of the world’s top suppliers of coltan and has surpassed DRC’s export of the mineral in recent years.

Where do DRC’s plundered minerals go?

In a public address that drew outrage last year, Kagame admitted that Rwanda was a transit point for minerals smuggled from DRC, but insisted his country was not stealing from its neighbor.

“Some people come from Congo; whether they smuggle or go through the right channels, they bring minerals. Most of it goes through here (Rwanda) but does not stay here. It goes to Dubai, Brussels, Tel Aviv, (and) Russia. It goes everywhere,” Kagame said, without providing evidence or specifying what minerals were being smuggled.

In 2022, the United States Treasury Department said that over 90% of DRC’s gold was being “smuggled to regional states, including Uganda and Rwanda” where they are “refined and exported to international markets, particularly the UAE,” and sanctioned a Belgian businessman for facilitating the trade.

For DRC’s other valuable minerals including coltan and cobalt, the scale of the plunder remains unclear.

In December, DRC sued subsidiaries of Apple in Belgium and France, accusing the company of sourcing conflict minerals. Apple denied the accusation.

Every year, tech giants such as Apple and Microsoft publish reports saying that they demand responsible sourcing of minerals from their suppliers.

In an earlier filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission in 2023, Apple said that while it continued to source 3TG (tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold) and other minerals such as cobalt and lithium from DRC and other countries, it was “committed to meeting and exceeding internationally accepted due diligence standards for primary minerals and recycled materials in our supply chain.” It added that its due diligence efforts had “found no reasonable basis for concluding that any of the smelters or refiners of 3TG determined to be in our supply chain as of December 31, 2023 directly or indirectly financed or benefited armed groups in the DRC or an adjoining country.”

Is there a solution to the conflict?

DRC’s mineral wealth has presented itself as a “curse,” according to analyst Okenda, who explained:

Last week, a humanitarian ceasefire announced by M23 fell apart almost immediately after it was declared, as the rebels swiftly advanced into Nyabibwe.

While regional and global leaders ponder solutions to ending the crisis, Okenda believes that DRC’s government needs to reinvent itself if it hopes for lasting peace.

DRC “has a governance model that if it does not change, the Congolese population will gain absolutely nothing, whether there is war or not,” he said.

“If the Kinshasa government improves its governance, invests in the army, ensures a fair sharing of resources between citizens in the country, and conducts elections that are of better quality, I still think that peace can return (to DRC),” he said.

North Korea has treated hundreds of Russian soldiers injured in Ukraine, Moscow’s ambassador to Pyongyang told state media, as he revealed new details of the reclusive state’s backing for the Kremlin’s war effort.

Wounded Russian troops have been recovering in North Korean medical facilities, Ambassador Alexander Matsegora told state-run outlet Rossiyskaya Gazeta in an extensive interview published Sunday.

“A clear example of such a brotherly attitude (between Russian and North Korea) is the rehabilitation of hundreds of wounded soldiers … in Korean sanatoriums and hospitals,” he said.

The Russian envoy’s comments are the latest sign of deepening ties between the two countries, which have recently reached heights unseen since the Cold War.

North Korea has sent about 12,000 soldiers to Russia, according to Ukrainian officials and Western intelligence reports, following Moscow and Pyongyang’s pledge to help each other if either nation is attacked in a landmark defense pact signed last June.

About 4,000 North Korean troops have reportedly been killed or injured in combat after being deployed to Kursk since at least November to repel Ukraine’s incursion in the southern Russian border region, Ukrainian officials and Western intelligence said.

Meanwhile, Russia has also received thousands of shipping containers of munitions or munitions-related material from North Korea, and Moscow’s forces have launched North Korea-made missiles on Ukraine, according to US officials.

In his interview with state media, Matsegora claimed that North Korea had treated wounded Russian soldiers for free.

“When we offered to compensate our (North Korean) friends for at least part of their expenses, they were sincerely offended and asked us never to do it again,” he said.

Matsegora also said that children of Russian troops killed in Ukraine had vacationed in North Korea last summer, and Russia and North Korea are developing student exchanges.

Moscow supplies Pyongyang with coal, food, and medicine, he added.

South Korea’s intelligence service declined to comment on Matsegora’s remarks.

The extent of care potentially available to wounded Russian troops within North Korea’s dilapidated health infrastructure remains unclear.

Doctors who have defected in recent years often speak of poor working conditions and shortages of everything from medicine to basic health care supplies.

Some analysts also cast doubt on Matsegora’s troop recuperation remarks, pointing to Russia’s brutal military tactics as the war in Ukraine grinds toward its third anniversary.

Russia “has reportedly been sending wounded personnel back into assault groups without treatment, demonstrating a general disregard for soldiers’ health,” The Institute for the Study of War said in a news release Monday, “calling into question official Russian claims to be sending Russian soldiers abroad for treatment, particularly to North Korea.”

However, any arrival of experienced Russian troops, particularly officers, in North Korea “may allow the Russian military to work with North Korean forces and disseminate lessons from the war in Ukraine while ostensibly recuperating,” the US-based conflict monitor added.

At least 31 suspected Maoist rebels and two police officials were killed on Sunday in the deadliest combat so far this year in central India, police said.

Hundreds of police and paramilitary soldiers launched an operation in the forests of the Indravati area of Chhattisgarh state based on intelligence that large number of rebels had gathered there, said state police Inspector General Pattilingam Sundarraj.

Sundarraj said as the troops conducted a search operation fighting erupted in the forest, killing at least 31 insurgents and two police officials. Two other police were injured. He said search operations were continuing in the area and the troops had recovered some arms and ammunition, including automatic rifles.

There was no immediate statement from the rebels.

Sunday’s fighting is the biggest so far this year and the second major clash in less than a month in Chhattisgarh, according to police officer Jitendra Yadav.

At least 16 rebels were killed in the state’s Gariband district on Jan. 23. According to Indian officials, the government had issued a bounty for 12 of them totaling about $345,000. Eight rebels were killed in a gunbattle with troops in the Bijapur district on Jan. 31.

Indian soldiers have been battling the Maoist rebels across several central and northern states since 1967, when the militants, also known as Naxalites, began fighting to demand more jobs, land and wealth from natural resources for the country’s poor indigenous communities. The insurgents are inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong.

Years of neglect have isolated many locals, who face a lack of jobs, schools and health care clinics, making them open to overtures by the rebels. The rebels speak the same tribal languages as many villagers and have promised to fight for a better future especially in Chhattisgarh, one of India’s poorest states despite its vast mineral riches.

The rebels have ambushed police, destroyed government offices and abducted officials. They’ve also blown up train tracks, attacked prisons to free their comrades and stolen weapons from police and paramilitary warehouses to arm themselves.

Five Thai workers released after being held hostage for over a year in Gaza arrived in Bangkok on Sunday.

Sarusak Rumnao, 32, Watchara Sriaoun, 33, Sathian Suwannakham, 35, Pongsak Thaenna, 36, and Bannawat Saethao, 27, were freed on January 30 as part of an exchange arrangement.

They were embraced by family members, some of whom cried, in the arrivals hall at Suvarnabhumi Airport. Thai Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa and the Israeli Ambassador to Thailand Orna Sagiv were both at the airport to welcome home the freed hostages.

“We are all very grateful and very happy that we get to return to our homeland. We all would really like to thank you. I don’t know what else to say,” Pongsak told a news conference at the airport.

Maris said the Thai government “never gave up hope and here is the result today. The tears of joy are our encouragement.” He added that Bangkok would continue working to secure the release of the remaining Thai hostage.

The group quickly left the news conference to return to their hometowns in Thailand’s northern and northeastern regions.

They were the second batch of Thai hostages released since the war broke out. During an earlier ceasefire in November 2023, 23 Thai nationals were released in a deal negotiated between Thailand and Hamas, with assistance from Qatar and Iran.