Gorillas are losing their lives and habitat in DR Congo as deadly insurgency waged by M23 rebels coupled with unbridled charcoal production impacts animal life in the region
Alain Mukiranya treads carefully on the ground made slippery by overnight rain, making his way through a bamboo grove as discreetly as possible – pushing aside stalks carefully not to make any noise.
“Exactly like humans, gorillas run toward seemingly peaceful places, away from gunfire,” said Mukiranya, director of the Gorilla Ambassador Program, as he looked around in all directions. As the rebels advanced, Mukiranya said, patrol posts located at Bukima, Gikeri and Mikeno – where hundreds of mountain gorillas reside – were destroyed. Some of the park’s vehicles and equipment have been stolen and are now used by M23 rebels to conduct assaults on military targets and civilian populations.
The M23, a Congolese Tutsi armed group that was defeated in 2013, took up arms again in late 2021 and stepped up its offensive in October 2022, seizing large swathes of territory north of Goma, the capital of North Kivu. UN internal paper claimed that Kigali had been supporting the M23 rebels with equipment and boots on the ground.Over the past two decades, international efforts and rare cooperation between DRC, Rwanda and Uganda had seen the number ofMukiranya said that for the past ten years, Virunga has been implementing broad conservation and anti-poaching policies. “The lions and elephants had even returned to Ishasha, an area of the park close to the border with Uganda.
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