Carrying her sore-pocked daughter across her decaying field, Helene Mvubu says she is one of thousands to have fallen victim to the toxic waste defiling the Democratic Republic of Congo's mining capital.

Global powers, notably China and the United States, are in a race to extract strategic minerals in the DRC, which supplies more than 70 percent of the world's cobalt, essential for making electric batteries and weaponry.

But human rights groups say the mining operations are resulting in severe environmental damage in the mineral-rich African nation.

Mvubu told AFP that she has for years suffered the consequences of flooding from contaminated water discharged by Congo Dongfang International Mining (CDM), a Chinese company that processes copper and cobalt ore in the outskirts of Lubumbash

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