Heavy fighting in northwest as militiamen kill gorilla

Environmental groups on Thursday confirmed heavy fighting in northwestern Rwanda and said one endangered mountain gorilla was killed and eaten by desperate Rwandan militiamen as they crossed from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) into Rwanda.

In a statement sent to IRIN, the International Gorilla Conservation Programme (IGCP) said fighting in the border area between the two countries had intensified over the past two weeks, with militia groups moving through the Virunga forest into Rwanda. According to the statement, recent fighting between the Rwandan army and the militias had resulted in at least 400 militiamen captured and an unspecified number of dead. “Two of the militia captives admitted to the park authorities in Rwanda that they had killed one gorilla, and eaten it for food,” the statement said. “The gorilla had been killed on the Rwanda side of the border, in the Parc National des Volcans. The militia admitted having shot two gorillas, but one disappeared and so only one was eaten.”

The statement said the local population does not normally eat primates, but according to IGCP director Annette Lanjouw this latest killing was significant “because we can no longer assume that the animals will not be hunted for food”. “This could lead to an enormous increase in threats to an already very vulnerable population,” she warned.

The Rwandan government took the threat to the unique mountain gorillas very seriously and sent a military contingent to the park to locate - with park staff - each habituated gorilla group to ensure that all the animals were safe, the statement said. All the habituated gorillas were accounted for, so it is likely that the dead gorilla was a solitary male or belonged to one of the non-habituated groups.

Rwandan army spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Bosco Kazura told IRIN on
Thursday the Interahamwe militiamen and ex-FAR (former Rwandan army)
soldiers were not “targeting” the gorillas. He described the incident as
“an exception”. “It was most likely because they [rebels] were encircled
by the army and they needed food,” he said.

According to Kazura, the Rwandan army killed 150 rebels and captured 32 in “fierce battles” with the Interahamwe and ex-FAR on Tuesday and Wednesday. He said the rebels - whose numbers ranged between 300 to 400 - moved into the Cyanzarwe district of Gisenyi province from their hideouts in the DRC. “People in the area saw them coming in and immediately told the authorities who alerted the army,” he explained. “It was a desperate move since the Lusaka accord [for the DRC] is being implemented which in part stipulates the demobilisation and disarmament of negative forces,” he said. “Rather than wait to be disarmed, many are trying to sneak into the country especially after reaching a point of no return with the army closing in on them from the DRC side.”

The Virunga forest houses two populations of the endangered mountain gorillas - 350 in total. The IGCP said they had suffered considerable losses due to war in the area over the past few years, with at least 16 gorillas killed directly by the fighting. “The impact of the insecurity and conflict on the gorillas’ habitat, their behaviour and their reproductive success has yet to be fully determined, but the population growth falls below that which would have been expected if conditions had been ‘normal’,” the IGCP statement pointed out.