It was a routine patrol around 7:30 am on Sunday, when six rangers working in Virunga National Park, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, were ambushed by a local militia group. The attack is the latest in eastern Congo, home to some of the world’s last mountain gorillas.
“It’s devastating,” park director Emmanuel De Merode told CBS News as he was leaving the funeral of one of his six rangers. “The families of these men have lost their family’s livelihood and have no safety net.”
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And for those 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 multiple times in the chest and abdomen in 2014.
The Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation, the body that administers protected areas in the country, says the latest attack occurred while guards patrolled the central sector of the park, next to a newly built electric fence to prevent intrusion into the protected area. The Rangers have been extremely successful with this – kept the militia out of the area – but that success has put a target in their heads.
The armed combatants were not poachers, but militiamen fighting for control of natural resources and land. Rangers are often attacked as part of the ongoing power war in eastern Congo. Dozens of armed groups operate in the region, many remnants of militias who have fought in civil wars over the past three decades that have resulted in millions of deaths from conflict, hunger and disease.
Jerome Delay / AP
Militia groups hidden in the Virunga Forest believe the parks have taken up too much land for animals and conservation – land they need to survive. But it’s not about survival – the Virunga Forest is rich in natural resources like coal, forests, lake fishing, animals and land. De Merode said this is a lucrative business for the militia.
“The park is very resource-rich and we lose about $ 170 million a year from these illegal activities,” he said. “This is what attracts the militia to the park. Our job is to protect the park, but it also means isolating them from large sums of money and putting them in frequent conflicts with rangers whose job it is to protect the reserve and its main species , mountain gorillas. ”
The attack was attributed to the Mai-Mai, a generic term that refers to the numerous militias waging armed conflicts in the region. They finance their activities with the illegal withdrawal of resources and are small, but well armed.
The Virunga Game Reserve is one of the oldest parks in Africa, with 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 on its way to becoming 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 ex-militia. The authorities hope that if they can give combatants sustainable work, it will end the conflict.
But the parks have suffered a series of devastating blows in recent years: a recent Ebola outbreak, the coronavirus pandemic and now another brutal attack. The lack of tourism due to this deadly cocktail of events has decimated the industry. De Merode said he doesn’t know how long they can afford it.
“It could take weeks,” he said. “At best, a few months.”