Within the mines of eastern Sierra Leone, a pastor found quite a treasure: a diamond that could be one of the largest ever discovered.
According to The Guardian, the government said that Emmanuel Momoh found the gem in an artisanal mine in the village of Koyadu within the diamond-rich Kono region. It weighs in at 706 carats. The stone was presented on Thursday and will be sold in a government-held transparent auction in the Sierra Leone to benefit the community.
"I have to help the government and my people, so all of us can benefit," presidential spokesman Abdulai Bayraytay quoted Momoh as saying.
Check out this whopper:
The diamond still needs to be analysed by experts, but it's probable that it's among the largest, behind the 3,106-carat Cullian diamond and a 1,111-carat diamond discovered in 2015. Diamond expert Paul Zimnisky told the AFP news agency that it could possibly rank "between the 10th and 15th largest dem-diamonds ever recovered."
"Most recent exceptional diamond discoveries have been made by large commercial miners that mine very large volumes of kimberlite ore and process it with advanced equipment," Zimnisky said.
(H/T The Guardian, Aljazeera)
