Axelle’s Reviews > Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives > Status Update
Axelle
is 73% done
The entire operation seemed like a death sentence, be it from suffocation, drowning, or collapse. I asked Ikolo if it was worth the risk. He went silent for a moment before offering a response. “There is no other work here. Cobalt is the only possibility. We go down the tunnel. If we make it back with enough cobalt, our worries are finished for one day.”
Ikolo looked somberly at his two boys, ages four and five.
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— 17 hours, 1 min ago
Ikolo looked somberly at his two boys, ages four and five.
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Axelle’s Previous Updates
Axelle
is 30% done
Imagine that deep in the Congo’s mining provinces, a child can be found digging for cobalt, wearing a muddy shirt with the logo of the behemoth American financial services company that had to be bailed out for $180 billion during the 2008 financial crisis. Imagine what even 1 percent of that money could do in a place like this, if it were spent on the people who needed it, not stolen by those who exploited them.
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— Feb 07, 2026 07:58AM
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Axelle
is 28% done
The more villages I visited in the Congo, the more I appreciated how challenging it was for a child to go to school. Most of us take education for granted and often compete mightily to obtain the best one possible, but children like Denis, Awilo, and Kiyonge had no chance at completing even a few years of elementary school.
— Feb 07, 2026 03:41AM
Axelle
is 8% done
Cobalt mining is the slave farm perfected—the cost of labor has been nullified through the degradation of Africans at the bottom of an economic chain that purports to exonerate all participants of accountability through a shrewd scheme of obfuscation adorned with hypocritical proclamations about the preservation of human rights. It is a system of absolute exploitation for absolute profit.
— Feb 05, 2026 01:56AM
Axelle
is 6% done
All cobalt sourced from the DRC is tainted by various degrees of abuse, including slavery, child & forced labor, debt bondage, human trafficking, hazardous and toxic working conditions, pathetic wages, injury and death, and incalculable environmental harm. Although there are bad actors at every link in the chain, it wouldn't exist were it not for the demand for cobalt created by the companies at the top.
Capitalism
— Feb 05, 2026 01:23AM
Capitalism
Axelle
is 6% done
In fact, no one seems to accept responsibility at all for the negative consequences of cobalt mining in the Congo—not the Congolese government, not foreign mining companies, not battery manufacturers, and certainly not mega-cap tech and car companies. Accountability vanishes like morning mist in the Katangan hills as it travels through the opaque supply chains that connect stone to phone and car.
— Feb 05, 2026 01:21AM
