In the mid 90s, after years of civil war, this West African country was in a state of devastation. The civil war, beginning in 1991, cost the country over 14,000 lives and forced 2.4 million people to flee – within the confines of their own country. The decisive factor underlying this conflict were and are immense resources: gold and diamonds. As a part of my work about the global refugee problem, I travelled to Sierra Leone in 1996 to photograph the phenomena of inland migration, and the reasons responsible therefore. Thus, this report evolved about the diamond diggers of Sierra Leone.
