Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) militia are threatening to slaughter rare mountain gorillas in DRC’s Virunga National Park after they raided the eastern reserve at the weekend, killing a wildlife officer, officials said.
Up to three more local wildlife workers were injured in the attacks early on Sunday by Mai Mai militia fighters on three conservation and tourism camps in the park, in DRC’s violence-torn North Kivu province.
Officials in Virunga said on Monday the attackers looted the three sites, seizing arms and communications equipment.
The area attacked is only two hours walk from a unique and isolated population of gorillas, according to WildlifeDirect, an organisation involved in conservation in Virunga, which is home to half of the 700 mountain gorillas that remain in the world.
”This was an unprovoked attack on our rangers and other wildlife officers who protect Virunga’s wildlife. And the Mai Mai said that if we retaliate, they will kill all the gorillas in this area,” Virunga’s park director, Norbert Mushenzi, said in a statement distributed by WildlifeDirect.
During the raids, 13 other local wildlife workers were taken hostage by the militia fighters but were subsequently released, WildlifeDirect said.
Despite the end of a 1998 to 2003 war in DRC and historic elections held last year in the former Belgian colony, renegade militia and rebel groups still operate in the east of the country, raiding villages and terrorising civilians.
Conservationists also accuse the Mai Mai of slaughtering hundreds of hippos with machine guns on the southern shores of Lake Edward in late 2006.
Illegal squatters
Lunpali Adanbert, communications officer for the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) in the provincial capital Goma, told Reuters the wildlife officer killed on Sunday had been gathering data for the WWF from villagers.
Park officials believe the attacks may also have been motivated by a longstanding conflict between conservationists and local people living illegally within the Virunga reserve.
Besides mountain gorillas, it is also home to eastern lowland gorillas and chimpanzees.
”The assailants said they would continue this kind of violence if the local people continue to be chased out of the park,” said Benoit Kisuki Mathe, an official with the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation.
The institute said wildlife rangers were tracking the militia and local army units were also being sent to the area.
In January, WildlifeDirect accused rebel fighters loyal to a renegade Congolese army general of butchering two silverback gorillas — adult males so called because of their grey colouring. But the rebel fighters of General Laurent Nkunda later agreed to stop killing the rare primates. — Reuters