It was a routine patrol on Sunday around 7:30 a.m., when six rangers working at Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo were ambushed by a local militia group. The attack is most recent in eastern Congo, home to some of the world’s last mountain gorillas.
“It’s devastating,” parks director Emmanuel De Merode told CBS News as he left the funeral of one of his six rangers. “The families of these men have lost bread winners and have no safety nets.”
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And for those who are left behind, it is a brutal blow to morale.
The attack is the deadliest since April last year, when 17 people – 12 of them rangers – were killed in the worst episode of violence in the park’s history. De Merode himself survived an assassination attempt after being shot several times in the chest and abdomen in 2014.
The Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation, the agency that manages protected areas in the country, says the latest attack took place while guards were patrolling the central sector of the park, near a newly built electric fence to prevent entry into the protected area. The rangers were extremely successful – they kept the militia out of the area – but this success put a target on their heads.
Armed fighters were not poachers, but militiamen fighting for control of natural resources and land. Park rangers are frequently attacked as part of the ongoing power war in eastern Congo. Dozens of armed groups operate in the region, many remnants of militias that have fought in civil wars over the past three decades, leading to millions of deaths due to conflict, famine and disease.
Jerome Delay / AP
The militia groups hiding in the Virunga forest believe that the parks have taken up too much land for animals and conservation – land they need to survive. But it’s not hand-to-mouth survival – Virunga Forest is rich in natural resources such as coal, forests, lake fishing, animals and land. De Merode said this was a profitable business for the militia.
“The park is very rich in resources and we lose about $ 170 million a year because of these illegal activities,” he said. “It simply came to our notice then. Our task is to protect the park, but it also means eliminating them from large sums of money and bringing them into frequent conflict with rangers whose mission is to protect the reserve and its iconic species, the mountain gorillas. ”
The attack was blamed on Mai-Mai, an umbrella term that refers to the numerous militias that lead armed conflicts in the region. They finance their activities by illegally looting resources and are small but well armed.
The Virunga Game Reserve is one of the oldest parks in Africa, home to stunning scenery, incredible biodiversity and, of course, the majestic mountain gorilla. The park offers a rare opportunity to see these creatures up close.
Before the global coronavirus pandemic, the park was about to become an economic asset. In an attempt to reduce violence, the authorities have created about 12,000 jobs and at least 11% of these new employees are former militiamen. Authorities hope that if they can provide fighters with a sustainable job, it can end the conflict.
But the parks have suffered a series of devastating blows in recent years: a recent outbreak of Ebola, the coronavirus pandemic and now another brutal attack. The lack of tourism in this deadly cocktail of events has decimated the industry. De Merode said he did not know how long I could last financially.
“It could be weeks,” he said. “At best, a few months.”