Lerala is a village in Central District of

Botswana Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label= Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kal ...

. The village is located at the south-eastern end of the

Tswapong Hills The Tswapong Hills are a mountain range in the Central District, Botswana. They rise to an elevation of 300 to 400 m above the hardveld of the almost 900 m high surrounding plateau. Geologically, these flat-topped hills are similar to the Waterb ...

, from the

Limpopo River The Limpopo River rises in South Africa and flows generally eastward through Mozambique to the Indian Ocean. The term Limpopo is derived from Rivombo (Livombo/Lebombo), a group of Tsonga settlers led by Hosi Rivombo who settled in the mountain ...

and the border with

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

and approximately east of

Palapye Palapye is a growing town in Botswana, situated about halfway between Francistown and Gaborone ( from Francistown and from Gaborone). Over the years its position has made it a convenient stopover on one of Southern Africa's principal north–sout ...

. The population of Lerala was 6,871 in the 2011 census, which was a 20.5% increase from the 2001 population. An

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

n company, DiamonEx Limited, opened a

diamond Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, b ...

mine north-west of the village. The mine initially known as Martins Drift Diamond Project opened early 2008 and was to employ 230–290 people to produce an estimated per year. Previously a joint company between

De Beers De Beers Group is an international corporation that specializes in diamond mining, diamond exploitation, diamond retail, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. The company is active in open-pit, large-scale alluvial and ...

and the Botswana government operated between 1998–2001 a smaller exploratory diamond mine at the same site. In February 2009 the mine was placed under Judicial Management due to very high operational costs and the world economic crunch. The company then had to seek permission to be placed under judicial management from the High Court. DiamonEx, which had already been listed on the Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE) also had the trading of their shares suspended as a consequence. In 2011, a UK based diamond company Mantle Diamonds bought the Lerala mine from DiamonEx Botswana which was in financial difficulties due to the global economic crisis. In 2014, the Lerala Mine changed ownership again after another Australian company, Kimberly Diamonds acquired Mantle Diamonds. The mine started operating in August 2015. By May 2017 Lerala Diamond Mines Limited, the Botswana-based subsidiary of Kimberly Diamonds Limited, was placed under judicial management, after being forced to suspend operations, because of inability to source the required funds to continue its operations. The mine was being closed for the third time in its history, after closures in February 2009 and also in July 2012.

References

Populated places in Central District (Botswana) Villages in Botswana {{botswana-geo-stub