For years, the railway was abandoned. It is scattered with debris, used mostly by motorbikes and pedestrians. Children sit on the sleepers. Families cross the rails without checking for trains.

But from 2024, occasional transports have started edging slowly along the tracks, including bright blue wagons branded Lobito Atlantic Railway (LAR). It's the first sign of how this ramshackle neighbourhood is set to be transformed.

The tracks form part of the Lobito Corridor, a planned multi-billion-dollar trade corridor that centres around rehabilitating nearly 2,000 kilometres of colonial-era railway. The line is primarily intended to transport minerals from the rich copper and cobalt mines of southern DRC, and potentially northern Zambia, to the Angolan port of Lobito.

The EU and the US have pledged billions in financing to projects linked to the Lobito Corridor, seeing it as a means to increase Western access to the DRC’s minerals...

LAR – a consortium of international companies that includes commodity trader Trafigura and Portuguese engineering group Mota-Engil – holds a 30-year concession to upgrade and modernise the railway line in Angola. While the Lobito Corridor‘s business partners in the DRC are not yet confirmed, LAR is currently undertaking emergency works on the line.

The Lobito Corridor’s proponents claim that it is much more than an extractive project...

But the modernised railway could cut a swathe through vulnerable communities like Bel Air. These populaces have so far seen few of the riches from the mining boom in the southern DRC, where cobalt production has increased by 600% in the last three decades. Bel Air lacks drinking water and many of its inhabitants survive by digging for minerals by hand, including from the tailings of foreign-owned industrial mines...residents of Bel Air and other low-income neighbourhoods of Kolwezi will likely be the first victims of evictions caused by the railway rehabilitation...

Beside any direct evictions, the Lobito Corridor is concerning for those on its frontline because it could worsen Kolwezi’s existing displacement crisis.

By lowering transport costs for mining companies, the project could make it viable to mine new reserves and expand existing mines, increasing pressures on land...

Trafigura, beside being a key partner in the LAR, is a commodity trader with supply agreements and major investments in Congolese mines, such as the Mutoshi mine currently owned by Chemaf Resources.

Mutoshi was identified in Amnesty International’s 2023 report as the site of violent evictions with inadequate compensation in 2015 and 2016, a few years before Trafigura started financing the project...

Another mine that has faced controversy over displacement linked to recent expansion plans is the Kamoa-Kakula copper mine southwest of Kolwezi. Kamoa-Kakula is a confirmed anchor partner in the Lobito Corridor, having signed a commitment with LAR to transport its minerals on the upgraded rail infrastructure. It also has a formal agreement to supply Trafigura with copper from a new smelter on the Kamoa-Kakula site...

When we visited Kolwezi in August 2025, Kamoa-Kakula had just cancelled its plan to relocate 10 villages, as the compensation required under the DRC Mining Code far exceeded its initial estimates.

But before this cancellation, according to researchers at civil society organisation Afrewatch, the process was conducted without the consultation mechanisms required by the Mining Code, in violation of the company’s own displacement policy.

The villagers had also been blocked from cultivating their fields in the affected area for over a year while negotiations were ongoing, leaving many struggling to feed their families...