By Innocent Onoh
If the resources will be exploited for the benefit of ordinary citizens, the future can be described as looking good for Sierra Leone. This is because the West African country is reported to have discovered another huge diamond deposit after an astounding discovery earlier this year.
Sierra Leone’s Minerals Agency has announced that a 476-carat diamond was discovered in the Kono district – the same eastern part of the country where a local pastor unearthed a 709.1-carat stone last March.
The pastor, Reverend Emmanuel Momoh, was believed to have found the biggest diamond since 1972, when the 969-carat Star of Sierra Leone was dug up by miners. It is larger than the diamonds unearthed in recent years at mines in southern Africa, behind the 1,111-carat rock found in Botswana in 2015, and among the 20 largest diamonds ever found. While the authorities in Sierra Leone have not officially given the yellow-hued diamond’s worth, experts value it at over $50 million.
According to the local media, the diamond will be sold by New York diamond specialists, Rapaport Auctions. Two other diamonds of 19.70 and 27.93 carats were reportedly discovered in the same area on the same day
Between 1991 and 2002, the district of Kono was at the centre of the “blood diamond trade” that funded the country’s brutal civil war as rebel groups exchanged gems for weapons. The situation invited an outcry which compelled the United Nations to ban diamond exports in the country. However, following the cessation of hostilities in 2003, the United Nations lifted the ban on diamond exports from Sierra Leone.
