Zama-Zamas of the Diamond Coast
Throughout the twentieth century, large-scale mining companies extracted vast quantities of diamonds from South Africa, yet very little of this enormous wealth trickled down to local communities. Despite its mineral riches, the so-called Diamond Coast of Namaqualand remains beset by widespread poverty. Service provision is haphazard, infrastructure is crumbling, drug and alcohol abuse is pervasive, and nearly half the working-age population is jobless.
When industrial mining declined amid dwindling diamond deposits and rising operating costs in the early 2000s, the companies, foremost among them the diamond giant De Beers, pulled out, exacerbating an already extreme unemployment crisis. Across the country, the collapse of the mining sector left behind some 6,000 abandoned mines and paved the way for a massive boom in illegal mining. Locally the illegal miners are known as Zama-Zamas, an isiZulu phrase that translates loosely as "Those who try their luck".
The Zama-Zamas, who comprise everyone from former street vendors to unemployed university graduates, operate without safety equipment or oversight of any kind. Fatalities from accidents and tunnel collapses are frequent. Living conditions are bleak. And lacking mining licenses, they must live and work in constant fear of police raids. Yet many say this is the only way they can support their families, and their only means of benefitting from a resource that they feel has for too long been "looted" by outsiders.
Throughout the twentieth century, large-scale mining companies extracted vast quantities of diamonds from South Africa, yet very little of this enormous wealth trickled down to local communities. Despite its mineral riches, the so-called Diamond Coast of Namaqualand remains beset by widespread poverty. Service provision is haphazard, infrastructure is crumbling, drug and alcohol abuse is pervasive, and nearly half the working-age population is jobless.
When industrial mining declined amid dwindling diamond deposits and rising operating costs in the early 2000s, the companies, foremost among them the diamond giant De Beers, pulled out, exacerbating an already extreme unemployment crisis. Across the country, the collapse of the mining sector left behind some 6,000 abandoned mines and paved the way for a massive boom in illegal mining. Locally the illegal miners are known as Zama-Zamas, an isiZulu phrase that translates loosely as "Those who try their luck".
The Zama-Zamas, who comprise everyone from former street vendors to unemployed university graduates, operate without safety equipment or oversight of any kind. Fatalities from accidents and tunnel collapses are frequent. Living conditions are bleak. And lacking mining licenses, they must live and work in constant fear of police raids. Yet many say this is the only way they can support their families, and their only means of benefitting from a resource that they feel has for too long been "looted" by outsiders.