Xolobeni mine

The Xolobeni mine is a proposed titanium mine located in the Wild Coast region of the Eastern Cape of South Africa. The proposed mine has reserves amounting to 348.7 million tonnes of ore grading 5% titanium. The government decision to support the company's 2007 application for Mining Right was challenged by the Amadiba Crisis Committee (AAC), formed in 2007 by local people who would be affected by the mine. The lands have traditionally been held communally by local villages. The subsequent decades-long conflict has been marked by violence. The chairman of the Amadiba Crisis Committee, Sikhosiphi 'Bazooka' Rhadebe, was assassinated in 2016. Amnesty International has called on South Africa to respect the rights of indigenous people and to protect threatened indigenous rights advocates such as Nonhle Mbuthuma, another founder of the ACC. In September 2016 the Minister of Mineral Resources announced an 18-month moratorium on mining in the Xolobeni area. In September 2018, it was proposed that the moratorium be extended for another two years. As of 22 November 2018, Judge Annali Basson of the Pretoria High Court stated that even if the informal rights of customary communities had not been protected by law previously, they had the right to decide what would happen to their land. Therefore the Minister of Mineral Resources cannot grant mining rights to the Xolobeni lands without

Mine data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).