The UN Security Council has lifted a more than three-year-old ban on diamond imports from Liberia, applauding the government’s cooperation with the ‘Kimberley Process”, a mechanism set up to keep so-called “blood diamonds” from reaching world markets.

 

The council has terminated the measures on diamonds, by which all states should prevent the direct or indirect import of all rough diamonds from Liberia to their territory, whether or not such diamonds originated in that country.

 

Blood diamonds has also been blamed for financing wars in other African countries, including Angola, Cte d’Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of Congo.