Is this the world’s largest diamond. It is a 706-carat large stone and found in the mines of eastern Sierra Leone.
Pastor Emmanuel Momoh was one of the thousands of workers who were working in the informal mining sector in the Kono region, known for diamond mostly.
The large diamond was later presented to Sierra Leone President Dr Ernest Bai Koroma, who thanked the chief and his workers for not smuggling the gem.
Koroma added a transparent auction of the so-called blood diamond would be followed to benefit the community as well as the country.
The sale of blood diamond often funded military dictatorships in several African countries. In the 1990s it helped finance civil wars across the continent.
The London Diamond Bourse reveals 65 percent of the world’s diamonds come from Africa.
During the civil war rebels allowed diamond traders to exploit the mines and ship the uncovered gems in foreign countries via Liberia.
The new giant gem was found in the Sierra Leone district where US-Belgian business tycoon Michel Desaedeleer was accused of diamond trafficking during the civil war in the 1990s that took away about 120,000 lives making it one of the deadliest conflicts in the continent in recent history.
Desaedeleer is alleged to have committed the crimes before dying in the jail ahead of the beginning of his trial.
The largest gem ever discovered in over a century is 1,111-carat and was found in 2015 at a mine in Botswana.
Lately the Sierra Leone government has cracked down heavily on cross-border diamond trafficking.