Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian

Congo Crisis 1961 History

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Officials search the crash site after the plane carrying Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjold (1905 – 1961), Secretary-General of the United Nations, came down near Ndola in Zambia, resulting in his death, September 1961. Hammarskjold was on his way to negotiate a ceasefire with President Moise Tshombe of Katanga. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
COBALT AND NICKEL MINING IN CONGO

Today’s hidden costs of critical minerals mining in DRC recalls Dag Hammarskjöld’s death 1961

The UN leader killed in 1961 during peace negotiations in Congo may have been an assassination plot over Western interests in mining. Today’s violence in eastern DRC is over…

  • Charlize Tomaselli
6 min read