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Washington--The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Controls (OFAC) updated its list of sanctioned Zimbabwean companies to include the two firms recently cleared to export rough from the troubled Marange area of the country.

Marange Resources (Private) Ltd., the company formerly known as Block Wood Mining and also known as both Marange Resources and Marange Resources Ltd., and Mbada Diamonds, also known as Condurango, Condurango Investments Pvt. Ltd., Mbada, Mbada Diamond Mining and Mbada Diamonds, were added to the OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals list on Friday.

According to a JA spokesperson, these two companies are not new to the list but, rather, their addition is a “clarification of a technicality.”

Zimbabwe Mining Development Corp. (ZMDC) has been listed by OFAC since 2008 and has an interest in both Mbada Diamonds and Marange Resources, which means both companies were considered sanctioned prior to Dec. 9, JA said.

At the Kimberley Process meeting in November, KP members cleared these two companies to begin exporting rough from the Marange diamond-mining area of Zimbabwe, an area that has been plagued by human rights issues and smuggling that has been a source of debate among KP members for the past several years.

The United States abstained from voting at that meeting, stating at the time that while it didn’t completely agree with the deal reached on Marange exports, a compromise was “necessary” to move the KP past the Zimbabwe deadlock.

Since that vote was taken, JA has spoken out to remind jewelers that Marange diamonds remain illegal in this country due to government sanctions.