Africa is one of the richest regions on Earth in terms of natural resources and raw materials. The vast continent boasts an extensive portfolio of gemstones — including diamonds, rubies, and sapphires — which can be found across many African countries. These precious stones are sometimes discovered quite literally on residents’ doorsteps, with the potential to change lives overnight.
That’s exactly what happens in a small village near the city of Koidu in Sierra Leone’s Kono District. Gano, a travel creator who shares “untold stories of Africa” on his YouTube channel Gano Did It, documented his visit to a diamond village where locals can go from broke to becoming millionaires in a single day.
The creator spent two days exploring and speaking with locals of the village, located in the Kono district, which is also known as Sierra Leone’s “diamond capital”, to learn more about the region’s mining industry.
He said: “So many Africans and non-Africans made their fortune here, including some of the richest people in my own country, the Gambia.”
Along his journey, he met people of other nationalities who had come to the village to profit from its fortunes. Speaking to one of the miners, they told Gano: “In Sierra Leone, as far as minerals are concerned, so many different nationalities from all over the world are here.”
Just a short distance from the city centre, Gano reveals that many offices are set up, ready to sell and buy the minerals. After buying them from the local miners, the office managers usually export them to countries including Dubai, China, the Netherlands and America to have them sold over there.
Ibrahim Morelai Jawara, Chairman of Kono Gold and Diamond Dealers, told Gano that where you decide to ship the minerals to “depends [on] where you have your business partner.”
Gano also shared in the video that within the industry, many of the miners do not have their own equipment and instead are funded by businessmen in the city centre.
Yusuf Tunkara, gold and diamond trader, said: “We used to take five, seven, eight people. We sponser them, send them to the mining area. When they get it [diamonds] and come with it, we buy it from them, sell it, and they [the miners] get their own percentage.”
According to Gano, “some of these miners go from being broke one day to millionaires the next”. However, as noted, that is only the case for some.
Bia Faal, one of the miners, claimed that while some people can find diamonds after a day’s work and that “when you are lucky to find it, it changes your life for good,” others mine for years and still find nothing.
A kilogram of fine diamonds can go for the price of a staggering $5 million (£3.7 millon) as per the video, and mining typically happens in two ways — large-scale and small-scale.
Mining on a larger scale requires an explorational mining licence, while small-scale mining happens when members of the community who “consider themselves as the owners of the land” come together to dig for mineral. After a full day of labour, locals will typically gain two to three grams of gold.
Diamonds were first discovered in the country in the 1930s. Since then people have continued to mine in search of precious minerals.
