Uranium in the DRC: Kinshasa Responds But Carefully Avoids Naming China

Kinshasa, DRC Days after Chinese mining companies flatly denied any wrongdoing, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has finally broken its silence on revelations that thousands of tones of undeclared uranium may have left the country hidden inside routine cobalt exports. What stand out in Kinshasa's response is not what it says, but what and whom it carefully avoids naming.

A Statement Without a Subject
In a statement published by the Ministry of Communication and Media on Thursday, August 6, 2026, Congolese authorities said they had "taken careful note" of the findings and sought to "set the record straight" following the July 30 publication of a peer-reviewed study in Nature Communications, produced by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Princeton University and examined further through a joint investigation by Lighthouse Reports and the Financial Times.

The striking detail is this: although the revelations centre overwhelmingly on Chinese mining operations, the official Congolese statement does not name China once. The DRC produces roughly seven in every ten bags of the world's cobalt, and sends close to 95 percent of its output to China. Between 2000 and 2024, researchers estimate that between 2,000 and 5,000 tons of uranium left Congo concealed within cobalt shipments a volume they calculate could theoretically supply between 600 and 1,500 nuclear weapons, or power a standard light-water reactor for ten to twenty-five years. Against numbers of that magnitude, Kinshasa's silence on its single largest trading partner in this sector is difficult to read as accidental.

Caution, Not Confrontation
The government's posture is a marked departure from the tone taken by the companies implicated. A day before Kinshasa's statement, the Chinese Embassy and mining firms operating in the DRC directly rejected the accusations. Kinshasa, by contrast, adopted a far more measured line, declining to point a finger at any single actor and instead describing the coexistence of uranium alongside copper and cobalt ores as a "natural" phenomenon that has been "well-documented" across more than a century of industrial mining in the region.

Whether that caution reflects a genuine desire to verify contested facts before assigning blame, or reflects the political and economic weight China carries in the Congolese mining sector as the dominant buyer of Congolese cobalt and a major investor in mines including Tenke Fungurume the statement alone does not resolve. What is clear is that the restraint sits uneasily next to the specificity of the findings it responds to.

The Questions Kinshasa Left Unanswered

The government's rebuttal leans heavily on a single methodological objection: that the Nature Communications study relies on modeling rather than direct measurements taken from individual exported shipments. Authorities said their own internal analyses do not confirm the trends the study describes, and Lighthouse Reports has since indicated it is preparing a second phase of its investigation.

But the statement does not engage with the study's more specific claims including documentation the investigation says shows repeated exceedances of regulatory uranium thresholds at individual mining operations. The Tenke Fungurume mine, majority-owned by Chinese group CMOC, is singled out in the underlying reporting for allegedly exceeding legal uranium thresholds on multiple occasions between 2016 and 2020. Kinshasa's statement offers broad context about the geology of the Copperbelt without addressing that specific allegation, or the study's headline volume estimates, directly.

What Happens Next
To its credit, the government has not stopped at a rebuttal. Alongside its statement, Kinshasa announced it would consult the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about arranging a technical support mission, and said it would establish a working group to test cobalt hydroxide shipments through both a national laboratory and an accredited international laboratory. Officials have committed to assessing potential health and environmental risks over the next sixty days and making the findings public.

Those commitments will be the real test of Kinshasa's posture. A government genuinely confident that uranium contamination in its cobalt exports is a benign, well-managed geological fact has little to lose from transparent, independently verified testing and everything to gain in credibility, both with its own citizens living near Copperbelt mining operations and with an international community increasingly attentive to nuclear materials accounting in critical mineral supply chains. Whether the DRC delivers on that testing timeline, and whether its findings are published in full, will determine whether this episode is remembered as a moment of accountability or another chapter of unresolved ambiguity in one of the world's most opaque and strategically vital mineral corridors.

Mustapha Bature Sallama.
Medical/ Science Communicator,
Private Investigator, Criminal investigation and Intelligence Analysis.

International Conflict Management and Peace Building.USIP

mustysallama@gmail.com
+233-555-275-880
References
Chinese Embassy in the DRC (via X/Twitter), denial statement, August 5, 2026. https://twitter.com/ambchineenrdc/status/2085037819261501615?s=46

DRC Ministry of Communication and Media (via X/Twitter), official statement, August 6, 2026.

https://twitter.com/com_mediasrdc/status/2085491839319027836?s=46

Philippe, M. & Manzuk, et al., "Undeclared uranium exports from the Democratic Republic of Congo," Nature Communications, July 30, 2026. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-75910-z

Lighthouse Reports, "Congo's Hidden Uranium Exports," July 30, 2026. https://www.lighthousereports.com/investigation/congos-hidden-uranium-exports/

Semafor, "DR Congo exporting uranium to China – report," August 3, 2026. https://www.semafor.com/article/08/03/2026/dr-congo-reportedly-exporting-uranium-to-china

Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, "Undocumented uranium exports from the Democratic Republic of Congo," August 2026. https://spia.princeton.edu/news/undocumented-uranium-exports-democratic-republic-congo

Actualite.cd,

"RDC: une mine de cobalt du groupe chinois CMOC dépasse les seuils légaux d'uranium pendant..." July 30, 2026. https://actualite.cd/2026/07/30/rdc-une-mine-de-cobalt-du-groupe-chinois-cmoc-depasse-les-seuils-legaux-duranium-pendant

AFP/BSS News, "DR Congo says will look into reports of uranium in China-bound cobalt," August 7, 2026. https://www.bssnews.net/international/412583

MINING.COM,

"DRC probes how 5,000 tons of uranium 'leaked' into cobalt exports," August 7, 2026. https://www.mining.com/drc-probes-how-5000-tonnes-of-uranium-leaked-into-cobalt-exports

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