The Red road runs north of Lubumbashi up into the mountains of the Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Even though it is an important part of the national highway system, the road is impossible in the dry season and impassable in the rainy season.
The road that runs west and east from Lubumbashi to Kolwesi, along which the huge mine transports travel, is repaired on an on-going basis. The road that runs north and south has been allowed to deteriorate to its present state. The mountain passes are rocky and dangerous for large trucks, which largely get stuck in the mud of the river beds.
Passenger cars can no longer make the journey. For personal transportation, nothing less than a Land Rover or Land Cruiser is up to the challenge. The big trucks, carrying every kind of merchandise for the towns up-country, take a pounding until such time as they break down.
The road is blocked by trucks with broken axles, failed transmissions and flat tires. There are also trucks which are buried up to their frames in mud. Detours are cut into the forest to get around trucks that will wait for months for repairs or for the mud to dry enough to get going again. A person with a small business may buy product in Lubumbashi and wait six months for it to arrive in Mitwaba or Monono.
The road is called La Route Rouge because it was along this road that the marauding gangs of foreign armies, government soldiers, rebels and war lords raided and burned villages, raping and torturing terrorised villagers as they went. The road ran with the blood of the innocents (coincidentally, the clay-sand mix of the soil actually makes the road red in colour).
La Route Rouge forms one leg of the region known as La Triangle de la Mort, the Triangle of Death.