Zimbabwe running ‘torture diamond mines’

THE Zimbabwe security forces are running illegal mining camps in the country’s Marange diamond fields where civilians are beaten and forced into intensive labour, the BBC has reported.

The Marange fields have been at the centre of a years-long controversy over abuses by President Robert Mugabe’s army, forcing the diamond watchdog in 2009 to suspend exports of gems from the eastern fields.

The BBC Panorama programme claims to have uncovered camps where prisoners and civilians are forced to mine the gems and are whipped and tortured as punishment. The main camp, known locally as Diamond Base, is a tented military-like enclosure with razor wire, where the workers are held, the report said.