The young miner already recognised the sound of dogs as a terrifying harbinger of death but the dull thud of the helicopter blades was something new.

Minutes later a Zimbabwean air force helicopter swept over the hundreds of fleeing illegal diamond miners and mowed down dozens with machine-gun fire. After that the police arrived and unleashed the dogs that tore into the diggers, killing some and mutilating others. The police fired teargas to drive the miners out of their shallow tunnels and shot them down as they emerged.

How many died in the assault two weeks ago is not clear but the miners say it was at least scores. Some bodies remain unclaimed and unidentified in Mutare hospital mortuary.

"First we heard the helicopter and we knew it wouldn't be good but I thought it would just deliver soldiers," said the young miner, a former student who gave his name only as Hopewell.

"Then it came over us and started shooting. There was a man next to me, he had been digging near me, and the bullet went right through his head. Everyone was in panic. People ran but they didn't want to leave their finds behind so they were stopping to grab them and getting shot ... The police were waiting for us with the dogs. I was lucky. A dog ran for me but there was this woman, she was slower than me and it attacked her. I don't know what happened to her. I went back to my diggings a few days later but she hasn't come back."

The police and military have for weeks been conducting a bloody campaign, which Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights has described as "resembling a war", to drive thousands of illegal miners out of a recently discovered diamond field that some in the industry believe might be the richest in years.

The miners say hundreds have died. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change says it has the names of 140 people killed although there is common agreement that many have been buried without a word.



The diamond fields around Chiadzwa, about 20 miles north-west of the town of Mutare in Zimbabwe's eastern Manicaland province, are a collection of shallow tunnels and open gullies dug out after the discovery of gems close to the surface two years ago set off the rush.

Thousands of illegal diggers moved in - estimates run between 10,000 and 30,000 including foreigners from across southern Africa - spending days or even weeks to discover only tiny diamonds worth no more than a couple of hundred US dollars. But that is several months' pay for many Zimbabweans as their country collapses under the weight of hyperinflation.

Many of the miners are professionals, such as teachers and civil servants, who have abandoned jobs that do not pay enough to feed their families. Others are students who have dropped out of university in the hope of making a quick fortune and subsistence farmers whose land has not produced a crop in years. And some have got very rich.

Mutare, on the border with Mozambique, has taken on the air of a frontier town filled with brash young men touting US dollars and an air of menace. The hotels are filled with miners and dealers. Luxury cars prowl the streets. Shops have filled with imported goods sold for American dollars and South African rand. Spend any amount of time in a hotel bar and periodically someone will approach with diamonds for sale.

The governor of Zimbabwe's central bank, Gideon Gono, has estimated there are more than 500 syndicates handling more than $1bn a month in illegally dug diamonds that are swiftly smuggled out of the country.

Now Zimbabwe's government, or at least members of its discredited ruling elite, are apparently trying to take control. The military and police have moved in to try to drive the illegal diggers out of plots the miners say are claimed by Grace Mugabe, the president's wife, and Joice Mujuru, the vice-president. Both areas are now known by the women's names.

Legal and opposition political sources in Mutare say the prime mover behind the military assault is the Zimbabwean air force chief, Perence Shiri, the former commander of the notorious Fifth Brigade which massacred about 20,000 people in Matabeleland in the mid-80s.

Shiri oversaw the bloody military campaign of beatings and killings in Manicaland earlier this year that terrorised voters into supporting Robert Mugabe in June's presidential election.

He sent the helicopter gunships into the diamond fields three weeks ago. The police were already letting loose ferocious dogs, killing some miners and maiming others. One police tactic is to use teargas to drive them out of the tunnels, causing stampedes in which some have been crushed. The miners say that in some cases the police shoot down the men, blinded by teargas, as they flee.

One described how there is shooting nearly every day and particularly at night. "There were three of us mining together. In the night a policeman came and shot my friend, twice in the chest. We ran away but came back. He was still alive. We carried him to a hospital but he died," he said.

A policewoman working in Chiadzwa said she saw a pile of 50 bodies after one helicopter attack. "There were a lot of bodies. They were piled up. I don't know what happened to them. Some of the dead are just buried secretly," she said. "Miners are killed every day. The orders to the police are to shoot them if they find them digging but many of the police do not want to carry out those orders. These are ordinary people like us."

The situation has got so bad that some miners are now arming themselves and fighting back. The state-run press has reported that several police officers have been killed in shoot-outs.

But none of that deters the men who continue to work the diamond fields. "The risks are worth it," said Hopewell. "Some miners have run away but most of us don't leave for long. We hear stories of giant diamonds. I've already sold enough to make more money than I have made in five years. I have bought food for my mother and father. I have bought a television and a DVD from South Africa. Next I will buy a car. If they don't kill me," he says, and laughs.

A De Beers subsidiary held the exploitation rights to the fields but let them expire in 2006 because, according to industry sources, it believed the diamonds to be of poor quality. A British firm, African Consolidated Resources, bought the rights but it was ousted by the government when large quantities of high quality diamonds were discovered a short dig under the surface. Theoretically the diamond fields were then taken over by the state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation but the illegal diggers moved in so fast it was unable to assert control.

Some economists speculate that Zimbabwe's rulers look on the diamond fields as a new source of US dollars now that the country's foreign reserves have largely been spent and the collapse of agriculture, industry and tourism means there is little new money coming in. But given the bitter experience of recent years Zimbabweans have little reason to believe that if the ruling elite gets control of the diamond fields, the revenues will be used to rescue the country.