Archive for the ‘Virunga National Park’ Category
Lubiriha is our patrol post north of Ishango, very close to the border with Uganda. Patrols have been reinforced in the area during the last two months.
Villagers have been moving into the park at fast speed, building houses, breeding animals and cultivating all sorts of crops. During many of our patrols, several warnings have been given to the local villagers to move their belongings from inside the park.
These pictures are from last week when Troop I of the Advance Force returned to Mutsora after burning their houses.
We managed to catch the chief of the village who gave away fake certificates of land property to the villagers. He is now in captivity in Mutsora.
I would like to provide an update of my Rangers who are sponsored to date. As you know there are 49 of us in the Advance Force, of which I am the leader. We were formed as an emergency unit for Virunga National Park, and as such move around the park as the situations dictate - like with the current emergency. It costs $244 to sponsor a Ranger. The breakdown of this is listed here. I am still in the Southern Sector of Virunga - with two of the three Troops of the Advance Force. We have been conducting patrols into the charcoal sector and the gorilla sector to help the rangers here after the gorilla massacre in July. As you know from the gorilla blog the situation has been very tense here in recent days and the rebels have taken control of the gorilla sector. I have also been writing posts on the gorilla blog because I am down here working in this sector, and I shall continue to do this. I am spending a lot of time on patrol. In the meantime here is the breakdown. I am sponsored by Happy Hollow Zoo each month. Thank you very much.
Deo is sponsored by Rachelle and friends for $106 out of the $244.
Joseph and Jules Aloma, the brothers, are the leaders of 2 Troops. Joseph is sponsored fully by Libby and Jules by Kevin in England. WildlifeDirect tells me he is also going to put on music concerts to raise money.
Kavusa is also sponsored $35 per month.
Delphin is sponsored fully by Georgina O. and has been since February.
Isaya is sponsored $10 a month.
And Mwaka $25 per month.
If you would like to sponsor one of my Rangers, please email info@wildlifedirect.org. We need sponsors for all of us and we are grateful for all the support we get from you. Thank you. Elie
I have just been shown this story by Ben, my friend who was in Congo and came with us on patrol. He is a journalist for the Daily Telegraph in England. If you click on the picture you will be able to read his story of when he was with us.
Hello, Will from WildlifeDirect here. Elie left very early this morning to patrol the Mikeno Sector, where the gorilla killings took place. I was not awake when he left but he did leave the following message outside my tent, to post up here on his blog (English version below) C’est avec tristesse que la Force Avancée a reçu la mauvaise nouvelle sur la écocide de gorilles de montagne dont le nombre jusque la se lévè à 7 gorilles habitués de famille Kabirizi et Rugendo tuées par des inciviques. Ainsi pour sauver les restes qui peut-être traumatisés par les coup des bals des inciviques. L’urgence nous oblige de préparer ce qui suit:
La Troupe I reste pour sécuriser la station de Mutsora. Nous serons à Rumangabo pour 3 mois sur-ce il n’y aura pas beaucoup sur mon blog. Pour plus d’information visiter le site Gorilla Protection. Kwaheri tuonane tena baadaye Elie In english: It with sadness that the Advance Force received the terrible news on the killings of mountain gorillas, the number of which has risen to 7 habituated gorillas from the Kabirizi and Rugendo families. In order to save those that remain, who may still be traumatised by the gun shots, it is with urgency that we must arrange the following:
Troop I will remain at the Mutsora Station, to keep it secure. We will be stationed at Rumangabo for three months, and because of this you will not see much activity on my blog. For more information please visit the Gorilla Protection site. Kwaheri tuonane tena baadaye Elie As most of you would have seen from Paulin’s blog, a strategy is being put into place to protect the remaining gorillas. This will involve constant patrolling of the park, both within and along the park boundaries, as well as a small group of rangers providing around the clock protection to each family of gorillas: “This approach is extremely intensive, and unfortunately depletes other parts of the park of their rangers, but given the crisis, we will have to maintain it for at least three months. The approach is also extremely expensive (maintaing 33 rangers on operations will cost close to $5000/month), and your donations have played a huge role in making it possible (we can fund this operation for about 3 months). We’re extremely grateful for that help.” If you are reading this and you want to help further we here at WildlifeDirect have put together some campaign material. Send an email to gorillacampaign@wildlifedirect.org, and simply put in the title of the email, “I want to help campaign for the Mikeno Gorillas” and we will send you further information. Thank you.
Yesterday we found this viper snake right in front of my house. They are very colorful and robust, and they live in wet places and also in small caves in mountains. The colorful skin of thier body helps them to survive and camouflage.
The bite of the viper snake is so powerful you would need instant medication because you would lose a lot of blood. The enemies of the viper snake are the birds when the snake is small because the birds eat small snakes, rats and humans. The viper snake is endangered because of their soft skin, because it is so smooth that people like to wear it and also have it. They are also endangered because they are interesting and also because people have them dissected. The viper snake is an animal that can have a lot of babies.
There are hippos, elephants and above all crocs in the Semliki River that runs out of Lake Edward north to Lake Albert. But once in a while we go for a dip, to cool off after patrol. Here I am with Kiabumba, one of my Rangers.
Today I went to visit Kambale Mulonda, the Ranger who was shot in the Mai Mai attack on the gorilla sector of Tshiaberimu at the end of May. Kambale is from Mutsora, so he has come here to continue his recovery. I asked him some questions, and this is what he had to say: How are you feeling? I am feeling better but I still have pain in my leg and take pills every day. I was shot twice, once in the upper thigh and once in the calf, both times in my left leg. The Mai Mai was only about 2 meters away. I have come to Mutsora because this is my home and I want to be with my wife and family to recover. How long will you be off work? I think I will not be able to go to work for about 6 months. That is what the doctors say. I must walk with a crutch still. Do you want to go back to work? Despite what has happened I still like my job. When I first got shot I thought about stopping being a Ranger. But now I want to go back to work. My job is important because I protect animals and nature. I love all animals, especially the gorillas in Tshiaberimu. Where do you want to work? Back in Tshiaberimu? Well we cannot choose where we work. We must move around patrol posts as we are told by our commanders at ICCN. That is how it works. So I will go wherever I am sent. I have been with ICCN for 12 years and worked at many different posts throughout Virunga National Park. Are you afraid of being a Ranger? No. When I was shot I got up to go outside to fight. But there were many Mai Mai and I could see they were waiting for me. But now that I have been shot I am not longer scared of being shot again.
Kambale with his wife and children. He has 8 children.
Here I am helping Kambale get lined up for the photo outside his house.
All his family and friends were looking on as we spoke in his house.
And here Kambale showed me the bullet wounds - you can see one in the thigh and one in the calf. Entry and exit wounds. He is still in pain.
I was on patrol recently in Virunga National Park with my Rangers. We were near Ishango.
We patrol the park looking for illegal cultivators or people who bring their cattle illegally into the park. We also act as a deterrent to the Mai Mai rebels. Here I am examining cattle droppings. It is different conducting patrols in the savanna areas of the park. In the forest areas we find the rebel camps and poacher camps, but in the savanna people tend to come in and out of the park at night as it is harder to hide during the daytime.
The boundaries of the park are shown by what we call a “borne”. This is a concrete stone, and they were put in place all round the edge of the park by the Belgians in the 1950s. The park was established in 1925 but the “bornes” were not put down until later. This is a “borne” in Ishango. You can faintly see the markings. It is number 31127 and says PNA on it which stands for Parque National Albert. This is the colonial name of Virunga National Park.
Many people used to believe that the Belgians hid treasures under these concrete stones. When Independence came to Congo in 1960, people say that the Belgians did not know what to do with their treasures. They did not want to take them to Rwanda or Burundi so they hid them. And they hid them under the “bornes”. So people in Congo have dug up where they have found the concrete stones, to try and find treasure.
This is a view from afar of where people have dug a large hole in search of Belgian treasure.
And here is the hole closer up. This hole was actually dug in 1997. I think it was dug by the NALU - the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda.
I am not sure if the NALU rebels found anything there, but I reckon it took them about 6 months to dig that hole. I hope it was worth it.
Honore Balikwisha and his troop have just come back from Tshiaberimu, where they have been patrolling the area together with the ICCN guards who are permanently stationed there. In their place, Joseph Aloma and Troop II went to Tshiaberimu on Saturday morning. We will continue to patrol the area every day to secure the area from another attack and to better protect the lowland gorillas living there.
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. |
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