Gunmen stalk diamond diggers in Congo

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With the crash in diamond prices worldwide, gangsters have lost their main source of revenue: protection money extorted from Mbuji Mayi’s diggers.

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The army and police have paired up to combat ‘suicidaires’. Diamond production drives the economy of Mbuji Mayi, which was uninhabited until mining began there a century ago.

After digging all day on the edge of the Democratic Republic of Congo's biggest diamond mine, Mike Mukadji hurries home to his pregnant wife and baby daughter for fear of encountering the gunmen known as ‘suicidaires'.

With the collapse in diamond prices over the past year, the gangsters have lost their main source of revenue, protection money extorted from diggers. The criminals, known as suicidaires for their suicidal propensity to confront police in shootouts, are turning instead to robbery. Their targets are workers in Mbuji Mayi, the capital of Eastern Kasai province and center of the country's diamond-mining industry.

"They will just kill you," said Mukadji, 29, as dusk settled on the hundreds of diggers heading home, chewing on peanuts and roasted corn. His diggings average about 1,000 francs ($1.24) a day, Mukadji said.

The suicidaires, many armed with AK-47 rifles, are riddled with army and police deserters, said Dieudonne Tshimpidimbua, the coordinator of local human rights body Groupe d'Appui aux Exploitants des Ressources Naturelles. As the global recession has cut producer prices by 70 percent in the region over the last eight months, suicidaires have started breaking into homes and stealing at gunpoint, threatening the workforce of small diggers that nationwide accounts for more than 90 percent of Congo's $365m diamond industry.

"They're harassing the population," said provincial police chief general Philemon Patience Mushidi, whose force killed two suicidaires last month in a firefight. "That's what the crisis has brought to our province. We often start shooting at each other. It's like a war. Before, the city was safer."

Mbuji Mayi's police have stepped up joint patrols with the army to counter the suicidaires, Mushidi said in an interview in his air-conditioned office in central Mbuji Mayi, ignoring one of his seven mobile phones as it rang to the tune of ‘Mon General Patience'.

"If the diamond price doesn't pick up, this spike in crime will get even worse," he said.

Prices of VS2 G diamonds, a commonly traded gem, are at $4,210 a carat for a one-carat stone, according to Antwerp-based PolishedPrices.com. They peaked in October last year at $6,920 a carat and averaged $4,672 in the last 12 months. A carat is equal to a fifth of a gram.

De Beers, the world's biggest diamond company, and BHP Billiton, the top mining company, have ended exploration projects in Kasai.

De Beers cut output by 91 percent in the first quarter. The Societe Miniere de Bakwanga, or Miba, which is 20 percent owned by Mwana Africa and 80 percent by the Congolese state, on Nov 18 ceased production for the first time in more than a 100 years.

Diamonds fetch so little in Mbuji Mayi these days that they have taken on a nickname in the local Chiluba language, ondja, which means something of such poor quality that it is almost worthless.

The price for a carat has dropped to about $150 from about $500 a year ago, according to Celestin Kubela, the President of the Provincial Council of Diamond Merchants.

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