Global InformationKamatanda information
 Miners from Kamatanda | |
| Location | |
|---|---|
  Kamatanda | |
| Location | Likasi |
| Province | Haut-Katanga Province |
| Country | Democratic Republic of the Congo |
| Coordinates | 10°57′11″S 26°46′22″E / 10.953004°S 26.772802°E |
| Production | |
| Products | Copper, cobalt |
| Type | Open pit |
Kamatanda is a region just north of Likasi in the Haut-Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It gives its name to an open-pit copper mine, a railway junction, an abandoned airport and a residential area of Likasi.
The Sanga people mined copper at Kamatanda in the pre-colonial period. The Belgian Union Minière du Haut-Katanga (UMHK) was established in 1906 and took over the mine. In 1966 possession passed to the state-owned Gécamines. Gécamines allowed artisanal miners to operate the mine, working in dangerous conditions for very low pay. The miners established an informal residential community around the mine, which suffered from lack of clean water and power, lack of drainage and pollution. Starting in 2016 Gécamines began modernizing the operation. A new ore crushing plant came into operation in 2019.