The report from USA Today found that refugees and residents from the war-torn countries of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan feel “left behind by American sentiment and spending”, particularly when regarding Israel and Ukraine.
“Oh, stuff is always happening in Congo,” is the general sentiment that HanGa Ngandu, 27, who lives in Michigan, says she experiences.
According to the report, both countries face some of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world which is believed to be driven in part by global inaction and the greed of American businesses.
Some 72,000 Sudanese people live in the US, the report cites the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey as saying. Meanwhile, a smaller Congolese community is quickly growing with more than 18,000 refugees having been resettled in 2023, the report added citing the State Department.
Fighting first broke out in Khartoum, Sudan’s Capital, in April of 2023 between the Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The war has since killed more than 15,000 people and created what the report says is the world’s largest child displacement crisis. More than 9.2 million people in Sudan have been driven from their homes from the wave of violence, and Sudan is now teetering on the brink of a famine.
Human rights groups and US officials have accused the RSF of trying to carry out an ethnic cleansing campaign.
But the US has failed to fund the war-torn countries of Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the same way it has assisted other countries. In fiscal year 2023, the US provided humanitarian aid to the Democratic Republic of Congo worth $677 million and provided nearly $596 million to Sudan through international organizations and NGO partners, a spokesperson for the US State Department told USA Today.
However, in that same time period, the US supplied more than $16 billion to Ukraine. Israel has also been the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign aid since it was first founded and has received about $310 billion in total economic and military assistance.
And since Israel’s war with Hamas first began in October of last year, the US has enacted legislation providing at least $12.5 billion in military aid to Israel, according to a report from the Council on Foreign Relations which was written in May. And this month, the US approved $20 billion in arms sales to Israel.
However, the West seems to act without caution when manipulating foreign countries, particularly in Africa, to benefit its own greed.
Many of those living in Congo do not have the same privileged access to smartphones that the West has, however, the country is home to important minerals that are responsible for powering millions of phones across the globe. The report notes that “over 70% of known cobalt comes out of Congo’s mines".
In April, lawyers for Congo wrote to Apple CEO Tim Cook and demanded answers regarding allegations that the US tech company may be tainted by “blood minerals” taken from the country at a time of humanitarian crisis.
“International observers have documented numerous schemes that underpin and enable an extensive money laundering enterprise through the illegal trade in conflict minerals sourced from Congolese territory,” a press release from Amsterdam & Partners LLP reads. “These observers have demonstrated the dependent nature of relationships between perpetrators of this looting and some of the biggest producers of consumer electronics…”
The US State Department told USA Today that they regularly engage with Apple and other US companies regarding mineral issues. Meanwhile, spokespeople for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Apple declined to comment when the outlet reached out to them.