Sierra Leone: The Diamond that saved a thousand lives

塞拉利昂:拯救千生之钻石

The Documentary Podcast

2026-05-26

31 分钟
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In 2017, five men digging in an open pit found the third largest diamond ever unearthed in West Africa. It was dubbed the Peace Diamond, in memory of the brutal civil war that had ravaged large parts of the region in the 1990s – a war driven in part by factions competing for control of the diamond trade. When the Peace Diamond sold for $6.5 million at auction in New York, the government pledged some of the profits would provide solar power, a clinic, a school and a road connection for the Sierra Leonean village where it was found. Each of the diggers and the pit’s owner also got a small share of the spoils. Nine years on, Ed Butler returns to Sierra Leone to see how much the government kept their promise and to what extent the discovery really did transform the lives for those involved for better, or for worse. This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from Assignment.
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  • Nine years ago, 2017, in a small, remote and extremely poor West African community,

  • I've joined a crowd of local villagers who've just broken out in song.

  • There's unbridled joy.

  • Why are they so happy?

  • The villagers have just learnt that in a nearby open-cast pit, five of their kinsmen have just unearthed

  • one of the biggest diamonds ever found in West Africa, one of the biggest ever found in the world.

  • It's over 700 carats.

  • It's the size of a large egg.