A Christian pastor has reportedly discovered one of the world’s largest uncut diamonds — weighing 706 carats — in Sierra Leone’s eastern Kono region. This beauty was photographed and posted on the president’s official website and reportedly being stored in the country’s central bank, according to government sources. It doesn’t appear that the Pastor gets to keep it because a local chief from Kono handed the stone to President Ernest Bai Koroma on behalf of Emmanuel Momoh who made the discovery and the government plans to auction it off.
Sources indicated that the presidency released a statement that Koroma thanked the chief who acted as an intermediary for not smuggling it out of the country. History reveals that Diamonds in the past have fueled a decade-long civil war that ended in 2002 in which 50,000 people were killed. Rebels forced civilians in the east to mine the stones and bought weapons with the proceeds, leading to the term ‘blood diamonds’.
