{"id":33239,"date":"2017-03-16T11:38:30","date_gmt":"2017-03-16T11:38:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/sierra-leone-pastor-finds-huge-diamond-in-kono\/"},"modified":"2017-03-16T11:38:21","modified_gmt":"2017-03-16T11:38:21","slug":"sierra-leone-pastor-finds-huge-diamond-in-kono","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/sierra-leone-pastor-finds-huge-diamond-in-kono\/","title":{"rendered":"Sierra Leone pastor finds huge diamond in Kono"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{A Christian pastor has discovered one of the world&#8217;s largest uncut diamonds in Sierra Leone&#8217;s Kono district.}<\/p>\n<p>The diamond, weighing 709 carats, is now locked up in Sierra Leone&#8217;s central bank in Freetown. It is one of the 20 largest diamonds ever found.<\/p>\n<p>Freelance, or artisanal, miners are common in Sierra Leone&#8217;s diamond-rich areas, reports the BBC&#8217;s Umaru Fofana.<\/p>\n<p>But there are questions over whether the community will benefit from the discovery, he adds.<\/p>\n<p>Pastor Emmanuel Momoh&#8217;s discovery, which has not yet been valued, is the biggest diamond to be found in Sierra Leone since 1972, when the 969-carat Star of Sierra Leone was dug up.<\/p>\n<p>It was first taken to President Ernest Bai Koroma on Wednesday evening before being locked up.<\/p>\n<p>The president &#8220;thanked the [local] chief and his people for not smuggling the diamond out of the country&#8221;, a statement from the presidency says.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Koroma said that the owners should get &#8220;what is due to them&#8221; and it should &#8220;benefit the country as a whole&#8221;, it adds.<\/p>\n<p>Sierra Leone is well known for its diamond industry but it has had a chequered history.<br \/>\nDiamond sales partly fuelled the country&#8217;s decade-long civil war when rebel groups exchanged them for weapons.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-18784 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_92949002_1.jpg\" alt=\"Artisanal, or freelance, miners are a common site in Sierra Leone&#039;s diamond-rich Kono district\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Source:BBC <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{A Christian pastor has discovered one of the world&#8217;s largest uncut diamonds in Sierra Leone&#8217;s Kono district.} The diamond, weighing 709 carats, is now locked up in Sierra Leone&#8217;s central bank in Freetown. It is one of the 20 largest diamonds ever found. Freelance, or artisanal, miners are common in Sierra Leone&#8217;s diamond-rich areas, reports [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-33239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33239"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=33239"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=33239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}