Sixty-five people are dead in the remote Ituri province of the Democratic Republic of Congo following a new outbreak of Ebola. According to Africa CDC, 246 suspected cases have been recorded in the Mongwalu and Rwampara health zones, areas characterized by intense population movement and mining-related mobility. The outbreak is centered more than 620 miles from the capital of Kinshasa, complicating medical relief in a region with poor road networks and persistent insecurity.

As the virus spreads, the state has moved to suppress local resistance against the mining cartels that dominate the province. Civil society groups denounced the 'arbitrary' arrest of 11 community leaders on May 1 following a peaceful protest against Tenke Fungurume Mining (TFM), a subsidiary of China Molybdenum Group. According to reports from Mongabay, the leaders were protesting the impacts of a lime processing plant on the village of Kabombwa. As of May 15, only three of the detainees have been released.

Read together, the biological crisis in Ituri and the suppression of the Kabombwa protesters reveal the brutal mechanics of 'Mineral Imperialism.' The link between the Ebola spread and the TFM arrests is the prioritization of resource extraction over the physical safety of the Congolese people. This paper observes that the state functions as a security detail for multinational capital, while leaving the biological commons to rot.

In the health zones of Mongwalu, the scene is one of desperate containment. Medical teams work in humid, temporary clinics while mining trucks continue to rumble past toward the border. The Africa CDC expressed concern that 'mining-related mobility' is a primary vector for the disease. For the residents of Lualaba, the wealth beneath their feet has brought only sickness and the iron fist of the authorities.