Unesco called on Wednesday on the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to urgently stop the slaughter of mountain gorillas in a national park where four were found killed last month.
”The four gorillas, one ‘silverback gorilla’ and three females, slaughtered in Bukima, probably on the night of 22 July, belonged to a group inhabiting an area regularly visited by tourists,” said a statement from Unesco director general Koichiro Matsuura.
”The disappearance of these gorillas represents not only a tragedy for the preservation of the species, but also the loss of an important source of revenue for local communities,” the statement said.
Unesco said that another female gorilla and her young were also reported missing and that seven gorillas had now been shot in the Virunga National Park since the beginning of the year.
Located in the north-east of the DRC, Virunga was made a World Heritage site in 1979. Mountain gorillas, regarded as a threatened species by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), are one of its prize assets.
Unesco called on the Congolese government to take urgent measures to protect the gorillas.
The measures included the sending of a joint Unesco-IUCN team to the park and the organising of a meeting later this year to discuss the conservation of all World Heritage sites in the DRC. – Sapa-AFP