Kafubu River Fish, Real Poisons for the Consumer Population in the South East of the Democratic Republic of Congo

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Kafubu River has received, for several decades, mining waste from GECAMINE Kipushi and Lubumbashi as well as those from the CHEMAF plant. Given this situation, we wanted to verify the degree of contamination of fish in the Kafubu River with TME (Trace Metal Elements). In doing so, fish samples from this river, downstream of mining activities, as well as samples of reference fish from upstream of any mining activity from the sources of the Panda and Kasungwe rivers and that of the Congo River were analyzed with Inductively Couple Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) and Inductively Couple Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES). Statistical analysis, using the Wilcoxon test, of the results obtained as well as the comparison of these with the thresholds of the WHO (World Health Organization), FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) and the EU (European Union) revealed that the fish of the Kafubu River are contaminated with As, Cd, Co, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb, Se and Zn. Thus, it was concluded that the fish of the Kafubu River were not fit for human consumption. In addition, because of the very high level of bioaccumulation of these TMEs in the fish of the Kafubu River, the latter have been described as poisonous for the consuming population. The main principle that emerges from this study is that fish from an ecosystem polluted by mining waste are not fit for human consumption. The results of this study will be brought to the attention of Decision- makers in the Haut-Katanga Province so that rigorous measures can be taken to prohibit metallurgical plants from dumping their mining waste into aquatic ecosystems.