An African church minister who supplements his meagre stipend by scrabbling for minerals in the artisanal mines of eastern Sierra Leone has discovered one of the largest diamonds ever found.
The 709-carat stone was extracted this week by Emmanuel Momoh, a pastor in one of the myriad churches that ministers to the mining communities of Kono district, the diamond centre that became the crucible of Sierra Leone's blood-soaked civil war.
It is believed to be the 13th largest uncut diamond ever to be pulled from the ground, industry analysts said.
The stone is to be auctioned, the Sierra Leonean government announced yesterday, although its value cannot be determined until its quality is assessed. An 813-carat diamond was sold at closed auction in London last month for £51m.
By rights, the stone should have been found by one of the internationally-financed companies operating in the Kono diamond fields. With their huge Caterpillar bulldozers, dredges and industrial water pumps, the big firms certainly had the technological advantage.
That the discovery was instead made by one of the thousands of ordinary men and boys who toil bare-chested under the relentless equatorial sun — a man of the cloth, no less — will be taken by many as an answer to the fervent prayers whispered daily in Kono's churches.
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