DIAMOND RUSH BORN CRACKED

Mhayise rolled the stones between his fingers and held them up in the fading sunlight.

His job prospects are bleak, he said, because no one wants to hire someone his age.Ī boy approached Khazi and his friend, Thiza Mhayise, with two stones to sell - one for 80 rand and the other for 100. Khazi lost his job of 26 years at a transportation company in December because of the pandemic. “These fat cats, these old crooks, what are they doing? Each and every day you’ll hear about millions stolen.” He added: “The government can’t tell us what to do in this, our ancestors’ land.” “The government can’t tell us anything,” said Lucky Khazi, 61, standing next to a hole where his friends dug. Many snickered at the pleas of government officials, jaded by a history of corruption and colonialism that has seen foreign entities extract lucrative mineral resources from communities, with only a handful of elites in the country benefiting. They also said the informal digging was bad for the environment, destroying vital grazing land.ĭespite the warnings, people kept coming. Government leaders asked people to stop digging and leave, citing concerns about the coronavirus, with South Africa reeling from a third wave of infections. Just days after the rush began, officials visited the site and took samples for testing. “Diamonds! Diamonds!” some people yelled. And there was no shortage of merchants looking to cash in on their newly extracted finds, which they insisted were precious stones.

DIAMOND RUSH BORN CRACKED

Music blasted from cars while some people cracked jokes and sipped beer. Vendors sold biscuits, sweet corn kernels and kota - a South African street food of white bread, fries and bologna.

Many diamond seekers wrapped themselves in blankets and slept in the holes they dug. They also help explain the long-shot appeal of KwaHlathi and its purported diamonds.Ī satellite village of sorts sprouted here. Those statistics translate into all manner of odd jobs - and risky ones, like venturing into abandoned mines, that have proved deadly. Among young people, the situation is even more dire: About three of every four South African youths are without a job. Unemployment in South Africa is at 32.6%, the highest level recorded since the government began producing quarterly labor force reports in 2008. “As the man of the house, it makes me feel less than,” he said of the difficulty of providing for his three children. Staples like beef, milk and butter were luxuries he could no longer afford. With his job search hitting dead ends, he has been subsisting on social grants totaling less than 1,100 rand ($77) a month, a quarter of what he had earned at the factory. The provincial government has since requested all those involved to leave the site to allow authorities to conduct a proper inspection, amid fears the people digging at the site could potentially be spreading the coronavirus.He had been without a job since October when the textile factory where he worked as a supervisor burned down. Some people have started selling the stones, with the starting price ranging from 100 rand ($7.29) to 300 rand. The coronavirus pandemic has made it worse. South Africa’s economy has long suffered from extremely high levels of unemployment, trapping millions in poverty and contributing to stark inequalities that persist nearly three decades after the end of apartheid in 1994. The lack of an analysis of the stones has not deterred the fortune seekers as long lines of parked cars on both sides of the gravel road could be seen just a few metres from the open field, where the young, old, female and male dug through the soil with picks, shovels and forks to find riches. Largest tanzanite gemstones in history sold for $3mĪ formal technical report will be issued in due course, the department said.

Gemstones said to be the largest Tanzanite stones found in Tanzania. The mines department said on Monday it was sending a team comprising of geological and mining experts to the site to collect samples and conduct an analysis. Unemployed Skhumbuzo Mbhele concurred, adding: “I hadn’t seen or touched a diamond in my life. When I returned home with them, (the family was) really overjoyed,” said the 27-year-old father of two. “This means our lives will change because no one had a proper job, I do odd jobs. The discovery was a life changer, said one digger Mendo Sabelo as he held a handful of tiny stones.

The people traveled from across South Africa to join villagers who have been digging since Saturday, after a herd man who dug up the first stone on an open field, which some believe to be quartz crystals, put out the word. More than 1,000 fortune seekers on Monday flocked to the village of KwaHlathi in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province in search of what they believed to be diamonds after a discovery of unidentified stones in the area.

Diamond rush born