Africa is known as a home to huge and expensive diamonds, and in this small village near Koidu, Sierra Leone, the world’s largest alluvial diamond was discovered. As a result of the high concentration of diamonds in the area, many people across the world have mined in the village, with a number of diamond and gold offices set up in the city centre. A YouTube video posted on the channel Gano Did It shares videos of « culture, landscapes and inspiring stories of Africa. » The creator spent just over two days exploring and speaking to the locals of the diamond village who are in the business of mining. He starts off the video by introducing Koidu as the country’s « diamond capital”.
« So many Africans and non-Africans made their fortune here, including some of the richest people in my own country, the Gambia, » he continues. He then finds out other nationalities that also come to the village to make their fortunes, with local miners and sellers listing a number of examples before one makes the statement: « In Sierra Leone, as far as minerals are concerned, so many different nationalities from all over the world are here. »
Several of the offices buy and sell the expensive minerals locally and some export them abroad to countries such as Dubai, China, the Netherlands and America. « It depends where you have your business partner, » Chairman of Kono Gold & Diamond Dealers, Ibrahim Morlai Jawara, tells the YouTuber.
Throughout the village, you’ll find a number of gold and diamond mines, with employees digging and washing up dirt to extract the minerals. Gano reveals to viewers that many of the miners working do not own their equipment but are funded by the businessmen in town before speaking to one of them.
« We used to take five, seven, eight people. We sponsor them, send them to the mining area. When they get it [the diamonds] and come with it, we buy it from them, sell it, and they [the miners] get their own percentage, » Gold and Diamond trader Yusuf Tunkara explains.
« Some of these miners go from being broke one day to millionaires the next. » Gano noted, but of course, that’s not the case for everyone as the video followed with Bia Faal, one of the local miners, sharing that some people can work for one day and find diamonds while you have some mining for years and find nothing.
Although the miner does emphasise that « when you are lucky to find it, it changes your life for good. » According to the video, a kilogram of fine diamonds can go for the price of a whopping $5 million (£3.8 million).
When it comes to mining in the area, there are two types—large-scale mining, which requires an explorational mining licence, and small-scale mining. In small-scale mining, you will see members of the community who « consider themselves as the owners of the land » come together and dig for minerals, typically producing two to three grams of gold after a « full day of labour. »
Diamonds were discovered in Sierra Leone in the 1930s, as per the video, and since then, people have been mining. Yet the minerals do not run out « no matter how much they mine. » The main lesson the YouTuber says he took from the experience was abundance: that « truly there is abundance of wealth in the world, there’s enough for everyone. »
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