The Marange diamond fields lie in Mutare District, Manicaland province, in eastern Zimbabwe. Diamonds were found there in 2006, and within months thousands of informal diggers had arrived. Police and then the army took control of the area, and Human Rights Watch documented killings, torture and forced labor. Marange became the main case critics used to argue that the Kimberley Process definition of conflict diamonds is too narrow, and the mining also left lasting damage to local rivers.
The find and the 2006 rush
De Beers held prospecting rights over Marange from the early 1980s, but its exclusive prospecting order lapsed in 2006. A British-listed company, African Consolidated Resources, took up rights and was preparing trial mining. Human Rights Watch dates the discovery that set off the rush to June 2006. By late that year the government had handed the field to the state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation.
Most of the stones sit close to the surface in old conglomerate and gravel beds, so diggers could recover them with shovels and sieves. That made Marange very different from a kimberlite pipe mine. News reports at the time estimated about 10,000 informal miners on the field by mid-December 2006, and later estimates ran higher. Many of the stones are small, dark and frosted. A Kimberley Process notice described typical Marange rough as looking like rounded, matte pebbles in shades from brown to black to dark green.
Police operations and the 2008 takeover
Police were deployed to the fields from November 2006 to October 2008 with orders to stop smuggling. Human Rights Watch reported that police "reaction teams" shot, beat and harassed miners during raids.
On October 27, 2008, the army launched Operation Hakudzokwi, a Shona name usually translated as "no return." Human Rights Watch reported that helicopters fired on miners in the Chiadzwa area and soldiers on the ground fired into the fields and nearby villages. Over about three weeks, the group found, more than 200 people died. Survivors told researchers that soldiers made miners dig mass graves.
The 2009 Human Rights Watch report, "Diamonds in the Rough," also found that army units then ran mining syndicates that used forced labor, including children, and that soldiers beat villagers accused of supporting illegal miners. Some diamond income, the report said, reached senior officials of the ruling ZANU-PF party.
In early 2009 the government announced a plan to move about 4,700 Chiadzwa villagers to Transau, a farm on the Odzi River, to clear ground for formal mining. Many families protested the move.
The Kimberley Process response
Zimbabwe was already a member of the Kimberley Process. The scheme only covers diamonds that fund rebel groups, and the abuses at Marange were carried out by state forces. Campaign groups, including the scheme's civil society members, called for Zimbabwe's suspension in late 2008.
At its November 2009 plenary the Kimberley Process chose a joint work plan with Zimbabwe instead of suspension, with a monitor assigned to Marange. In mid-2010 the monitor reported that Zimbabwe met the scheme's minimum requirements, and the government held a first large sale of Marange rough that August. Members kept disagreeing, and in November 2011 the Kimberley Process approved exports from the field.
Global Witness, one of the campaign groups that helped create the scheme, withdrew in December 2011. It said the Zimbabwe decision exposed weaknesses that the scheme had failed to fix despite months of reform attempts. Special monitoring of Marange ended in late 2012, and in 2013 the European Union lifted sanctions on the state mining corporation, which opened the way for Marange sales in Antwerp.
Joint ventures and the state company
From 2009 the government licensed a series of joint ventures at Marange, several with Chinese partners. By the early 2010s several firms were operating on different parts of the field. In early 2016 the government refused to renew their licenses, ordered them off the land, and moved mining into a new state firm, the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company.
Questions about revenue followed the field throughout. In a 2017 report titled "An Inside Job," Global Witness said Kimberley Process figures showed more than US$2.5 billion in diamond exports from Zimbabwe since 2010, but only about US$300 million could be clearly traced in public accounts. The report also described links between some mining companies and the security services. In 2021 the Centre for Natural Resource Governance, a Zimbabwean group, reported that security guards and state agents at Marange were still attacking informal miners with dogs and raiding homes in nearby villages.
Damage to rivers
Marange sits in the catchment of the Odzi and Save rivers. The Odzi is a tributary of the Save, one of Zimbabwe's main rivers, which flows east into Mozambique. Downstream farmers and villages depend on both rivers for drinking water, livestock and irrigation.
In 2012 the Zimbabwe Environmental Lawyers Association and local villagers went to the High Court to stop three Marange companies from polluting water sources. They named the Save, Odzi and Singwizi rivers and alleged discharges of sewage, chemicals and metals. A University of Zimbabwe study commissioned by the association that year reported harmful chemicals in the Save downstream of the fields. One company denied the claims and said muddy water was held in settling ponds, though it admitted overflows when pumps failed. Zimbabwe's Environmental Management Agency said in 2012 that its tests showed the water was clean, but later agreed that some firms had been discharging waste into the Save.
Villagers along these rivers reported cattle deaths, skin complaints after bathing and water they no longer trusted for drinking or irrigation. By 2014 they were seeking compensation for more than 500 cattle.
Silt is the other problem. Digging strips vegetation and loosens soil, and rain washes it into streams. Reporting from 2008 described rivers in Manicaland turning brown with mud as diamond diggers worked the banks. The Haroni River in Chimanimani district, southeast of Marange near the Mozambique border, was one of them, after a separate diamond rush along it. The same reporting said gold and diamond panning on the Save's tributaries had left silt that cut the river's flow and threatened the Middle Sabi irrigation area downstream. When the state took over diamond mining in 2016, the order covered fields in both Chiadzwa and Chimanimani.
Other Zimbabwean diamond mines
Marange is not Zimbabwe's only source. The Murowa mine, about 40 kilometers from Zvishavane in the Midlands, works kimberlite pipes discovered in 1997 and began production in 2004. Rio Tinto sold its majority stake in 2015, and the mine passed to local ownership linked to RioZim. River Ranch, near Beitbridge in the far south, is a smaller kimberlite mine that opened in the 1990s and has run on and off since. The diamond mine list covers major mines worldwide, and how diamonds are mined explains the difference between pipe mining and alluvial digging.
What it means for buyers
Marange rough enters the same cutting and trading pipeline as other diamonds, and a polished stone carries no visible sign of where it was mined. Buyers who want to avoid Marange goods have to rely on a seller's chain of custody records or origin programs, since a standard grading report usually does not state country of origin.
Frequently asked questions
Are Marange diamonds conflict diamonds?
Not under the Kimberley Process definition, which covers only diamonds that fund rebel movements. Human rights groups argued that the abuses Human Rights Watch documented at Marange should count, and the case drove calls to widen the definition.
What happened at Marange in 2008?
In late October 2008 the army launched Operation Hakudzokwi to take control of the fields. Human Rights Watch reported that more than 200 people were killed over about three weeks.
Which rivers were affected by Zimbabwe's diamond mining?
Pollution complaints tied to Marange name the Save, Odzi and Singwizi rivers. Reporting from 2008 also linked diamond digging to silt in the Haroni River in Chimanimani and in the Save's tributaries.
Who mines Marange now?
From 2016 most mining was consolidated under the state-owned Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company. A national diamond policy approved in late 2018 allowed some other companies back into the field.
