In a small clearing of the steamy Congolese forest, a dozen half-naked men are furiously shovelling in a sweltering pit of mud and water. For four months, they have relentlessly excavated tonnes of mustard-coloured mud and stones, desperately hoping it will yield precious, sparkling diamonds. Today, they get lucky.
The bare-chested man working the sieve yelps and holds aloft a tiny, shiny stone. Minutes later, he plucks another from the stony mess, this time slightly larger and brighter. His colleagues pause and a loud cheer erupts. "They say you have brought them luck," the owner of the mine says with a broad grin.
From this torrid mine, 40 kilometres north of the city of Kisangani, the sparkling stones begin a circuitous journey across the globe. They will be graded, polished, cut and change hands many times in many countries before being displayed in the softly-lit window of some glamorous boutique. They may even end up on the ring finger of a proud bride, a token of eternal love.
But for these diggers - hungry, dressed in rags and drenched in sweat under the burning sun - the rough diamonds represent, at most, $10.
"We don't know anything about shops or weddings here. All we think about is our conditions - and they are terrible," says 40-year-old Kombozi Owesaka, holding out that night's meal - a bunch of wriggling, thorny caterpillars to be boiled for soup.
A few months earlier, the mining area was controlled by the Ugandan army, one of nine military forces battling for control of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The soldiers forced men such as Owesaka to work for next to nothing. "If we refused, they whipped or tortured us," he says. Whatever diamonds were found, the soldiers pocketed.
Now the Ugandans are gone, but a different rebel group takes its own generous cut from the diamond trade.
The link between gemstones and guns echoes across Africa's bloodiest battle zones and most intractable wars. Sparkling diamonds - regarded in the west as symbols of beauty, success and purity - have become the curse of countries blessed with an abundance of them. Battles have been fought over them. Towns and cities have been flattened with the artillery they bought.
And hundreds of thousands of Africans, mostly civilians, have died.
There are many African countries where diamonds are mined and sold in correct conditions, and here the gems have laid the foundation for wealth and stability - South Africa, Namibia and Botswana, for example. But in others, bedevilled by civil conflict and rapacious rebels, diamonds have fuelled war and prolonged suffering. The continent's most concentrated form of wealth has become its most deadly.
A vociferous campaign by western lobby groups against "blood diamonds" may be about to change all that. Fearing a consumer boycott, such as the one which annihilated the fur trade, the secretive diamond industry is scrambling to introduce controls that would prevent rebels from selling their diamonds in the west.
But it's not yet clear if the proposals mooted at a South Africa conference two weeks ago can work - and who they will end up hurting the most.
The ban on diamonds sales from conflict zones will take months, possibly years, to take effect. And even if it does work, it could do more harm than good for many Africans.
Miners such as Owesaka earn about $50 a month for their labour in primitive conditions. In war-ravaged Congo, where most business has collapsed, that's a lot of money. And while rebels will always find ways to finance their wars, an embargo on the diamond trade would also deprive Owesaka - and his five children - of their only income.
Diamonds are a rebel's best friend for many reasons. They are small and portable - several million dollars' worth can be transported in a sock. They are subject to few customs regulations - the EU, for example, does not impose import duties. And, most importantly, they are extraordinarily valuable.
Last year, an estimated $7 billion worth of rough diamonds was traded worldwide. Industry giant De Beers estimates that less than 4 per cent come from conflict zones, but campaigners and western governments estimate it at twice that figure. That sort of money - $560 million - can buy a lot of weaponry.
What's more, the high price of diamonds - unlike that of gold - is practically guaranteed. The market is operated on a quasicartel basis by De Beers, which has a 70 per cent stake. The South African company buys up diamonds from all over the world and then releases them at a controlled price. Recently, the company revealed it is sitting on a stockpile worth $4 billion.
Guerrillas turned to diamonds to fund their wars in the early 1990s, following the disappearance of their Cold War sponsors. In the 1980s, Angolan rebel-group Unita was funded by the US and the South African apartheid regime to overthrow the Moscow-backed, communist government. When democracy dawned in 1992 Unita's leader, Jonas Savimbi, found himself friendless and broke. So he returned to the bush to kick-start a new insurgency - this time financed by diamonds.