Daily, forty-six year-old Dia walks into the jungle to hunt exhausting, harmful and precarious work within the diamond pits that pockmark the panorama of Kono District in japanese Sierra Leone.

If he’s fortunate, he’ll dig for as much as 10 hours in knee-deep mud to obtain US$2-3 on the finish of the day.

“The cash will not be good and the work is tough,” he says. After 20 years of working as a digger, he has little to indicate for it – his every day wage stays barely sufficient to offer meals and shelter for his spouse and 4 youngsters.

In the meantime, the diamonds that Dia and tens of 1000’s of others like him have extracted from Kono’s soils have offered for billions in worldwide markets.

Artisanal diamond mine on the outskirts of Koidu. (Picture: Josef Skrdlik/OCCRP)

Diamonds from the fields across the Kono District capital of Koidu, one of many richest diamond deposits on this planet, as soon as fuelled Sierra Leone’s brutal decade-long civil struggle.

This modified in 1995 with the arrival of South African mercenary outfit Govt Outcomes, which took management over town’s diamond fields from the Revolutionary United Entrance insurgent group.

Management was subsequently secured by a government-granted mining concession – a reward for the army help. The occasion marked the start of Koidu Restricted.

Now owned by Israeli mining magnate Beny Steinmetz’s BSG Sources, the corporate has performed a defining function within the native diamond business ever since.

To broaden its unique mining operations, the corporate destroyed a major proportion of town and its surrounding, evicting a whole lot from their houses. This precipitated main disruption to native livelihoods, destroying swaths of farmlands, polluting the air and contaminating underground water within the space.

These protesting the enlargement have been intimidated by police forces co-opted by Koidu Restricted. In a number of situations, protesters have been shot and killed.

Except for the availability of insufficient substitute housing to a variety of evicted residents, communities in Koidu haven’t obtained compensation for damages. Nor have they seen a lot of the wealth generated from the exploitation of their land.

The town has few paved roads and no working water. Electrical energy runs for just some hours within the night and, opposite to preliminary guarantees, the corporate has created solely a restricted variety of poorly paid jobs.

Koidu Restricted contested claims that it had accomplished harm to the neighborhood, and famous that final month the Excessive Court docket in Makeni dominated within the firm’s favor towards a lawsuit filed by a bunch representing evicted Koidu residents. The group stated it will enchantment the decision.

Koidu Restricted had “fulfilled all of its commitments to the welfare of the communities inside which it operates” and the corporate’s relationship with the neighborhood was “exceptionally constructive”, stated Ibrahim Turray, Head of Company Affairs at Koidu Restricted.

Koidu. The town has little to indicate for the diamond wealth extracted from the encircling soils. (Picture: Josef Skrdlik/OCCRP)

However Arthur Kargbo, a neighborhood activist, disagreed. “They’re taking our diamonds however folks don’t profit,” he tells OCCRP.

To make a dwelling, many residents have needed to depend on artisanal mining, digging within the surrounding jungles with pickaxes and shovels in the hunt for diamonds.

“Mainly everybody in Kono is one way or the other depending on artisanal diamonds,” says Ibrahim Bockarie, a area people advocate.

Some estimates counsel that artisanal diamond mining might immediately make use of as many as 300,000 folks, producing round 40% of Sierra Leone’s diamonds. Characterised by a fancy manufacturing mode, the business is notoriously exploitative.

With out Capital, You Grow to be a Slave

Each morning, streams of individuals head from Kono’s cities and villages to the bush in search of work. Arriving on the pits — deep, waterlogged, muddy sores dotting the panorama — they start to ask for work, addressing managers of particular person artisanal mines.

If fortunate sufficient to seek out employment for the day, the diggers, clad in little greater than ragged T-shirts and baseball caps, wade barefoot into the mud. Shovels in hand, they excavate the earth to a depth of as much as 20 meters. Lengthy chains of individuals stretch from the depths of the pit to the encircling partitions, as buckets of unsieved gravel are handed from individual to individual.

Artisanal diamond mine on the outskirts of Koidu. Diggers forming a series to take away the gravel for subsequent sieving. (Picture: Josef Skrdlik/OCCRP)

This gravel is later washed and sieved in the hunt for the dear gems.

All year long, temperatures frequently prime 35°C, with little respite from the solar to be discovered within the pits. Accidents are frequent, with diggers steadily affected by deep cuts and lacerations from sharp stones hidden within the mud.

All this for $2-3 a day. However diggers have discovered to be resourceful.

Rice, the staple meals of the Sierra Leonean weight-reduction plan, is normally offered solely in bulk. To buy a 25-kilogram bag, sufficient to feed a household of 4 for 2 weeks, diggers are sometimes compelled to take out loans to cowl the $17 price. If bought on credit score, one bag can finally price as much as $44 after curiosity.

“To make a stew, they will even purchase damaged items of dried fish, palm oil, margarine and pepper, which they combine with cassava leaves from their again backyard,” says Princeton Williams, a supervisor of 1 the native artisanal mines. “With this technique, they’ll survive.”

Lunch break. Diggers getting a bowl of rice with fish and cassava leaf. For a lot of, that is their solely meal for the day. (Picture: Josef Skrdlik/OCCRP)

Within the absence of different sources of earnings, diggers are inclined to haven’t any possibility however to just accept these circumstances.

“It’s a query of sophistication,” says Sahr Joe, a mining professional from the Community For Justice and Growth, a Sierra Leonean NGO. “If you happen to don’t have cash, you turn out to be a slave.”

A Tightly Structured Mode of Manufacturing

Due to the exploitative circumstances, the predominant type of artisanal mining earned the epithet ‘Kosovo’ – in reference to the brutality of the battle in former Yugoslavia.

Within the Kosovo system, diggers work only for a every day charge and aren’t eligible for any share of the good points from the diamonds discovered. All of the revenue goes to the plot homeowners and their financiers, recognized regionally as ‘supporters’.

​​In a typical setting, homeowners of land believed to comprise diamonds seek for folks prepared to assist finance the mining operations, pay wages to staff and provide instruments and equipment. Supporters are drawn primarily from Kono’s monetary elite.

Plot homeowners sometimes obtain 30% of the income from a diamond, with supporters receiving the remaining 70%.

Lately, the once-informal artisanal mining sector has undergone a technique of marked formalization.

For mining to begin, supporters should first buy a license from the Nationwide Mining Company (NMA). If land is owned communally, they need to additionally negotiate and acquire approval from the native tribal chief.

NMA officers pay common visits to websites, checking that operators possess a license and that data are stored for diamonds discovered.

An area landowner, overseeing an artisanal mine he’s working collectively together with his supporter. (Picture: Josef Skrdlik/OCCRP)

Nonetheless, a lot of the artisanal mining exercise happening in and round Koidu continues to flee authorities oversight.

One supporter, who requested to stay nameless, admits to working completely with out a license.

“If NMA comes, I simply give them $5 and so they go away me alone. Their staffers are all very poor,” he says. “To get approval from the chief, I purchased him a TV.”

Various Preparations

Whereas the Kosovo system has come to dominate the artisanal mining sector, there are other ways for diggers to take part within the diamond economic system.

Within the so-called ‘Tributor System’, diggers may be paid much less — sometimes beneath $1 a day — but when they discover a diamond, they’ll get a share from the revenue. The supporter negotiates the worth of the discovered stone with the digger and so they divide the income amongst themselves.

Diggers are usually drawn to this technique as a result of prospect of discovering sizable gems.

Artisanal diggers on the outskirts of Koidu. (Picture: Josef Skrdlik/OCCRP)

“I hope that at some point, I’ll make a fortune,” says Kai Pessima, who has labored as a digger for over 25 years. Nevertheless, he complains the cash his supporter pays him for the diamonds isn’t honest.

Aiah Lahai, who additionally spent over 25 years within the diamond pits, has had comparatively higher fortune. Some years in the past, he uncovered a diamond that enabled him to purchase three small homes for his youngsters.

Regardless of this, he stays satisfied that the sum he was given was inadequate.

If the diggers disagree with the value supplied by the mine proprietor’s supporter, the informally agreed employment phrases enable them to carry the diamond to a seller for impartial valuation.

There’s a catch, nonetheless.

Diamond Costs Are Typically Unfair

Diamond sellers, who function from dozens of little retailers that line the streets of Koidu, act as intermediaries between supporters and exporters in Freetown.

A seller’s place within the provide chain is maintained by valuation expertise. One must be educated in regards to the 1000’s of lessons of diamonds. Sellers additionally oversee an enormous community of brokers working all through Kono, who strategy miners with a view to preserve a gentle provide of gems to their retailers.

“To be seller, it’s good to know diamond costs higher than others,” says Brima Lebbie, a neighborhood seller and candidate for the chair of the Kono District Diamond Sellers Affiliation.

Whereas Brima admits that diamond sellers aren’t all the time completely forthcoming relating to the valuation of gems, he insists that that is a vital a part of the business.

“That is the enterprise of the revenue,” he says. “If the diamond costs have been laid on the desk and all people knew the worth, we would as nicely hand over on mining and go away the diamonds within the floor.”

Regardless of ostensibly working independently, diamond sellers typically coordinate their costs, successfully appearing as cartels.

If a digger takes a diamond to the seller and doesn’t settle for the value, details about the gem and the supplied value spreads shortly among the many sellers, who then refuse to pay greater than was initially supplied.

“The extra the digger strikes round together with his diamond to get a greater value, the extra the sellers unfold details about the diamond,” says Sahr Joe. “Finally the miner will most instances be left with no possibility however to both settle for the primary value or go beneath that.”

Exploitation Fuels Diamond Smuggling

As soon as purchased, the diamonds are transported to the capital of Freetown and licensed by licensed exporters to enter worldwide markets.

Nevertheless, not all diamonds uncovered in Sierra Leone are exported legally. Diamond smuggling, notoriously rampant throughout the civil struggle, stays a major downside. In line with one estimate, between 50-90% of gems are smuggled in another country, depriving the state treasury of potential export royalties.

Smuggling is pushed specifically by precarious employment circumstances and insufficient wages within the sector.

“The peasants steal the diamond from the supporter and promote it as a result of the lifetime of diggers is tough,” says Sahr Joe.

​​Sahr Joe, a mining professional from the Community For Justice and Growth. (Picture: Josef Skrdlik/OCCRP)

Probably the most outstanding smuggling route leads by Guinea, which shares a porous border with Sierra Leone. Gems mined in Kono are transported throughout the border to the mining settlement of Bambakaro, the place they’re registered as originating in Guinea.

Typically, diamonds are taken out immediately by Lungi Worldwide Airport, Freetown. One native businessman who requested to be known as ‘Sugarman’, detailed how he was in a position to assist a number of Europeans concerned within the worldwide diamond commerce smuggle $17,000 price of diamonds out of Sierra Leone.

“I drove them to the bush in Kono, the place I organized the transaction between them and three diggers. They introduced a bag with small items of diamonds. We paid in money and drove again to Freetown.”

In line with Sugarman, the Europeans made use of a authorities connection in Freetown to amass Sierra Leonean diplomatic passports, enabling them to go by airport safety unchecked.

Julius Mattai, the director of the Nationwide Mineral Company (NMA) appointed in 2019, has pledged to clamp down on diamond smuggling. Authorities have elevated border checks and employed extra officers to watch artisanal mines.

It’s unclear what results future measures may need on the viability of smuggling transferring ahead. In the end, until exploitation within the artisanal mining provide chain is addressed, diamond smuggling is more likely to stay an issue.

Future Challenges?

Many artisanal miners in Koidu are sceptical in regards to the long-term viability of the business.

“After I was youthful, my father would go away to the again yard, saying to my mom, ‘Begin getting ready meals, I’ll include the diamonds,’” remembers Sahr Joe. “This was when the land was productive and diamonds may very well be present in shallow floor.”

Exhaustion of near-surface-level diamond deposits has given rise to the progressive mechanization of artisanal mining.

“Now it’s important to go deep, which prices cash,” says Sahr Joe.

This creates downward strain on wages. As well as, the elevated use of equipment has curbed the sector’s demand for labor, additional undermining the diggers’ potential to agitate for satisfactory pay.

It’s, due to this fact, unsure how lengthy artisanal mining will proceed to offer even probably the most primary of livings for these Sierra Leoneans who rely on it.

​​Artisanal diamond mining is changing into more and more mechanized. (Picture: Josef Skrdlik/OCCRP)

There are additionally indicators that artisanal mining is starting to present method to industrial mining. In Sefadu, a small settlement simply outdoors Koidu, diggers are unsure about their potential to proceed mining within the surrounding fields.

“This complete space has been given to Meya Mining for exploration,” says a supervisor of one of many artisanal mines. “For now, we are able to keep, but when they resolve to start out mining right here, we must go.”

Different fields have been licensed to Seawright, an American mining firm, and there are additionally rumors that Koidu Restricted is planning to additional broaden its operations.

The folks of Koidu have to date had nearly completely unfavorable experiences with Koidu Restricted, at current the one worldwide diamond mining firm working in Kono. Nonetheless, some are optimistic about industrial mining’s potential to help native improvement.

Ibrahim Bockarie counts himself amongst such folks, regardless of nonetheless carrying a bullet wound that he obtained in 2007 throughout protests towards Koidu Restricted’s enlargement.

“I nonetheless see them as a chance,” he says.

This sense of optimism is inspired by an anticipated modification to Sierra Leone’s mining laws, which is presupposed to considerably improve royalties paid by mining firms to native communities.

“The bottom line is that they pay a fair proportion,” concludes Ibrahim.