“I have a family to support, a wife and a 1-year-old child.

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But over the past 20 years, rising operational costs and a dwindling supply of diamonds have made large-scale industrial mining increasingly unviable.

Once confined largely to the country’s estimated 6,100 abandoned or ownerless mines, officials say illegal mining is increasingly spilling over into operational mines too. The men, almost all of whom have arrived in the past two years, share the work and split whatever profits they make. Out in the desert, living conditions are bleak and working conditions even worse, but with some basic tools and a little knowledge of geology, they manage to make ends meet.

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“This is where we find the diamonds. In the past, they used hammers and chisels. But if you use a jackhammer, you can take out more rock and then there are more diamonds for you.”

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Danger in the tunnels

The miners have little in the way of safety equipment, and their tunnels are prone to collapsing. Smaller accidents occur frequently. Often go unreported. But it’s an imperfect system, made harder by the fact that tunnels dug by different groups of miners often collide.

“That’s how some guys died just two holes away from here. So we, the diggers, come in here and take the scraps.” But if we just sit there thinking about it, our kids will die. At the surface, in a stark, lunar landscape of craters and piles of rubble, zama-zamas cluster together around their holes, sifting through gravel and chatting over the low hum of diesel generators. If you get greedy you’ll die down here, and then your family will suffer even more. “The companies left us like they found us – with nothing.

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Over several decades, vast quantities of diamonds have been exported overseas, yet most of the area’s roads are still unpaved, service provision is haphazard at best and poverty and alcoholism are endemic. Unemployment in the province stands at over 46%.

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“Africa’s f***ed up. This is our land. These are our minerals.”

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The camp has enveloped a handful of derelict buildings left behind by the mining companies, where zama-zamas now sleep side by side on filthy mattresses on the floor. The camp, home to around 1,500 people, has no electricity, running water, clinics or sanitation but a surplus of bars and taverns that do a steady round-the-clock trade. “We’re here because of poverty, hunger and joblessness.”

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They’re not getting rich off their diamonds

Carefully, he empties its contents into his palm. On international markets they might fetch a substantial sum, he says, but due to the illegal nature of their work, the zama-zamas have little bargaining power and are forced to sell their finds to black-market buyers for a fraction of their true value. About a dozen small, rough diamonds tumble out.

“They buy diamonds like they’re buying sweets,” complained one zama-zama. “You get people buying diamonds for 100 Rand [about $5.50].

In its heyday, it was a thriving settlement of 4,000 people with about 30 recreational clubs. “They treat us like we’re criminals,” he says.

Many in the formal diamond sector would also like to see the legalization and regulation of informal mining, which they say hampers their legal operations and fuels a parallel black market in illegal diamonds. “This is not the Wild West.”

It’s for everybody,” she says.

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The uncertain future faced by zama-zamas

“They have knives, they have guns, they’re gangsters. They can come and buy things here, but afterward they must leave. We don’t want them here.”

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It also laid out plans to make it easier for artisanal and small-scale miners to legally acquire mining rights by streamlining the expensive and time-consuming process of applying for a permit.

Police raids are frequent. But within days, mining activity had resumed.

But creating new legislation to support the policies could take time. And critics say it’s unrealistic to hope that many zama-zamas will voluntarily cease their activities, undergo training, comply with regulations and start paying taxes and royalties to the government, especially given that many are in the country illegally and would not be eligible for mining permits.