Famous for its mountain gorillas, the UNESCO World Heritage site has been the site of persistent unrest as a wide variety of armed groups battle for control of oil and other rich mineral deposits.
Six national park rangers have been killed and two have been wounded in fresh violence in Africa’s oldest national park. The park is home to rare mountain gorillas.
At least six rangers were ambushed and killed by armed men in Virunga
National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Sunday. Famous for
its mountain gorillas, the UNESCO World Heritage site has been the site of
persistent unrest as a wide variety of armed groups battle for control of
oil and other rich mineral deposits.
“Mai-Mai carried out an ambush at Nyamitwitwi in the far end of the park.
The provisional toll is six park rangers killed along with two Mai-Mai,”
local government delegate Alphonse Kambale told AFP. Another park warden
from the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN) was also
seriously injured. Mai-Mai is an umbrella term for community-based militias.
Protection of endangered mountain gorillas
With a multi-ethnic population of over 100 million, the Democratic Republic
of Congo is Africa’s second-largest territorial state after Algeria and is
almost seven times the size of Germany. It is also home to the largest
remaining rainforest areas in Africa. Virunga park itself was created in
1925 and covers some 7,800 square kilometres (3,000 square miles). It is
home to about a quarter of the world’s critically endangered population of
mountain gorillas, many of whom live within a protected area at the foot of
the Nyiragongo volcano.
Frequent violence
The park is guarded by 689 armed rangers, at least 200 of whom have been
killed in the line of duty over the past decade. In April 2020, a dozen
rangers and 4 civilians were killed by a still unidentified group. mb/aw
(AFP, AP)
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