In 2017, in a small village in Sierra Leone, two teenagers, Komba Johnbull and Andrew Saffea, then 16 years old, made an extraordinary discovery: a 709-carat diamond, one of the largest ever found in the world. The discovery occurred while they were working in a mine in the village of Koyadu, in the east of the country, where they toiled in difficult conditions in exchange for food and materials for their families.
Usually, such diamonds end up on the black market, but the mine owner, Pastor Emmanuel Momoh, chose to hand over the stone to the government, calling it the "peace diamond." After an international auction, the diamond was purchased for $6.5 million by British businessman Laurence Graff, writes A2 CNN.
However, the story has a bittersweet ending. The two young men only made around 67,000 euros each, a lot by local standards but far less than they had hoped for after such a rare find. Johnbull bought a house in the capital Freetown, while Saffea attempted to study in Canada but was denied a visa.
Today, one works as a window and door manufacturer and the other takes care of horses. Although Momoh built a school in the village, the promised investments were not fully realized. The two young men feel forgotten and undervalued for their contribution, admitting that they would have liked to have managed the opportunity that fate brought them better, but they stole it! (A2 Televizion)
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