Ivorian Diamonds Reaching World Markets through Mali, UN Report Says

Diamonds from Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) are being taken through its northern neighbor, Mali, and exported to world markets, according to a leaked UN report. Although the UN team was not able to visit Mali, the report says that every person they interviewed in Ivorian diamond mines said that the diamonds were being shipped to Mali.

A similar UN report was released in December of last year, showing that Malian nationals were engaged in buying diamonds from Cote d'Ivoire and passing them on to world markets. At the time, UN experts estimated rough diamond sales by the Ivorian rebels to be between $9 and $23 million.

The 2006 report to the UN Security Council said, “The identification of these Malian buyers further underlines the significant smuggling of Ivorian diamonds to Mali in violation of United Nations sanctions,”  

Sikasso, a southeastern Malian regional center, 100 kilometers from the Ivorian border, is a likely transit point for smuggled diamonds, according to BBC News. Busses run frequently across a fluid border between Cote d'Ivoire and Sikasso, and the Malian city is awash with influences from its southern neighbor and refugees from the civil war.

Despite being initially reluctant to talk, local sources in Sikasso revealed that diamonds often pass through the city from Cote d'Ivoire. One man said, “Often you find diamonds in transit here, which have come from Sequela (in Cote d’Ivoire), passing through to Mali’s capital. When they get to Bamako there are certain businessmen there who sent them to western countries.”

Another, Suleiman Diallo, a shopkeeper who worked in Seguela’s diamond mine until he left in 2002, said diamonds are moved across the border regularly, “because it’s an easy route to take.”

The Malian government is denying any official knowledge of the situation, saying that, although some Malian nationals may be involved, the government is not officially implicated in the operation.

Mohamed Keita, Mali’s technical advisor to the minister of mines, water and energy, who will be traveling to Brussels next week on the invitation of the Kimberley Process for the KP Plenary meeting, said, “If we have proof that these things are happening, the Malian state will apply the law of Mali.”

“And the law of Mali takes very seriously its responsibility to suppress fraudulent exportation,” he concluded.