At least 20 employees of  mining giant De Beers were killed Sunday in South Africa in a traffic accident on a bus traveling to the Venetia diamond mine, one of the country's largest. This.

 “A bus carrying workers from the Venetia mine was involved in an accident on Sunday afternoon,” the  Limpopo provincial transport department (north) said in a statement. The accident “claimed the lives of at least 20 mine workers.”

 The cause has not yet been determined.

 According to a ministry spokesman contacted by AFP, the accident occurred around 4 p.m. GMT, about 25 km from the mine, is in  Musina commune, located on the border with Zimbabwe, in the far north of the country. “The bus collided with a truck,” Vongani Chauke said.

 South Africa has one of the most developed road networks on the continent, but is among the countries with the poorest road safety.

 The Venetia mine, located in bushland near the border of Botswana and Zimbabwe, has been operated by De Beers for more than 30 years. It accounts for 40% of South Africa's annual diamond production and has more than 4,300 employees, many of whom come from neighboring communities.

 Formerly the largest open-pit mine in the country, the site has undergone a transformation aimed at overcoming the diamond shortage. De Beers invested $2 billion  in a massive underground mining project and ended surface mining operations in December.

 The group, which plans to mine 4 million carats a year, announced in July it would begin producing diamonds from underground mines dug under  old open-pit mines, providing access to buried rocks Burials are worth several thousand meters. depth.