"žWe have to let people know what is happening here. The toxins are making us sick", says Tony Kayembe, a PhD toxiologist student at the University of Lubumbashi.
Congo is the biggest supplier of cobalt, the most expensive and key component in lithium batteries used for cell phones, laptops and electric cars. But the world's addiction to new technologies comes with a high price -- the contamination of water, soil and air -- poisoning the people mining the metal.
An extraordinary number of people living near mining companies suffer from respiratory and skin diseases linked to the toxic waste. And in some of the most shocking cases seen in medicine, babies are being born with severe birth defects.
I met with professors and doctors who are leading an investigation into the impact of cobalt in Lubumbashi, and spoke with people who are directly affected by the contamination.
