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The Documentary Podcast

Sierra Leone: The diamond that saved a thousand lives

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.32.7K Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2026

⏱️ 32 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 2017, five men digging in an open pit found the third largest diamond ever unearthed in West Africa. It was dubbed the Peace Diamond, in memory of the brutal civil war that had ravaged large parts of the region in the 1990s – a war driven in part by factions competing for control of the diamond trade. When the Peace Diamond sold for $6.5 million at auction in New York, the government pledged some of the profits would provide solar power, a clinic, a school and a road connection for the Sierra Leonean village where it was found. Each of the diggers and the pit’s owner also got a small share of the spoils. Nine years on, Ed Butler returns to Sierra Leone to see how much the government kept their promise and to what extent the discovery really did transform the lives for those involved for better, or for worse. This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from Assignment.

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.

0:07.2

Things just swirling around my head.

0:09.6

Am I really the product of this?

0:12.1

Astonishing secrets uncovered by at-home DNA tests.

0:17.0

Little did I know what more was to come.

0:19.5

I'm Jenny Clemen, and in the new series of The Gift,

0:23.6

we'll hear more stories emerging out of the ever-expanding global DNA database.

0:28.8

They did know that I was different.

0:31.7

You had kids together.

0:33.0

Yeah.

0:33.5

Then you met.

0:34.3

Then we met.

0:35.3

The Gift.

0:36.1

Listen on BBC Sounds.

0:43.7

Nine years ago, 2017.

0:48.2

In a small, remote and extremely poor West African community,

0:52.8

I've joined a crowd of local villagers who've just broken out in song.

0:57.0

There's unbridled joy.

1:01.0

We be fig joy now we are.

1:07.0

We dance, we dance, we jubilates, we laugh, we gladly him too much.

1:12.5

Because a big blessing from God.

1:15.0

Why are they so happy?

...

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