Elie Mundima

Category: Out on Patrol, Virunga National Park | Date: Jun 14 2007 | By: admin

I am now home in Mutsora after spending time at Tshiaberimu after the gorilla attacks. Two out of the three Troops of the Advance Force are back in Mutsora, after a month away, with the respective Troop Leaders. That one troop (with its 15 rangers) remains in Tshiaberimu.

I included a lot of information on the attack and the victims in my previous blogs. But I now have some photos to show you.

This was when we first went up to Tshiaberimu. The car had problems and we had to walk a lot of the way. We kept the luggage and rations in the vehicle, but walked and/or pushed the car!

We had lots of visitors up at Burusi, the main patrol post at Tshiaberimu where the attacks took place. The UN peacekeeping mission in Congo came, as did the Congolese army and of course us. The Director of the northern sector of Virunga, Norbert Mushenzi, is in this photo, second from left with the cap on.

The UN forces are the ones in the blue helmets.

This is a photo of a map on a sign of the Tshiaberimu sector:

After the Mai Mai finished their attack at the Burusi patrol post, they left on this path you see below towards Kalibina.

The situation now is much calmer and we conducted patrols for the entire month throughout the sector, between Burusi, Kitolu and Kikyo. At the beginning we were 2 Troops at Tshiaberimu and one at Ishango, but then Joseph Aloma’s Troop at Ishango came to join us. Those that have been arrested are still detained and we are waiting to see what happens.

Here are some of my men:

And the UN left

We hope the situation will remain calm. The threat has been diminished, but we have a lot of work to do still in Congo so this kind of attack does not happen again.