Days after a man was arrested with 67kg of hippo teeth and elephant husks, The Uganda police in Kasese district together with park rangers arrested five poachers in Queen Elizabeth national park who were also armed with gun just a day after arresting a man after they found him with 67kg of hippo teeth and elephant tusks in his possession. These five were arrested after shooting down two hippos at Rwemihunda near Kazinga channel which is located 14km inside the park. However, the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) official told the Observer that the operational rangers were alerted by the gun shots they had but Andrew Salube the district deputy CID said that it was a group of 17 armed poachers who had entered the park on that night of May 2 but they were unsuccessful because the police and the rangers were able to catch them after they had the gun shots.
Salube said that they were able to arrest these suspects as they were trying to escape through Democratic Republic of Congo to sell their meat. They were arrested from Kinyamaseke trading centre with their 2 vehicles were they had loaded their meat and they were identified as Charles Bwambale, Peregerino Bwambale aka Pere, Mbusa Musisi, Lawrence Thembo commonly known as Elephant and Deo Kyenge. During the interrogation, these poachers said that it is true they were a group of 17 poachers who entered the park and so when these five took off, the others stayed to continue with the hunting but seven remained in the park while five escaped so said Kyenge.
They also said that they have been killing animals in the park for quite along time now but when they were asked to surrender the guns that they use, they claimed to have left them inside the park. Salube mentioned that they had got live bullets from the dead animals’ bodies, at the crime scene and inside the car that they were using but only two hippo hooves and ribs of a hippo were recovered. Therefore because of these crimes that they committed, they will be charged with trespassing and illegal hunting of protected animals.
Currently, there is a joint force that has been formed by Uganda, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo to help patrol through the park to help reduce on the increasing poaching vice especially now that they are now killing gorillas too. Poachers killed a gorilla in areas between Visoke and Sabyinyo volcanoes and this place is facing a lot of poaching these days. These joint patrols are coordinated by the Greater Virunga Trans-boundary Collaboration (GVTC) and they saved gorillas of 49 snares which were planted by poachers to trap the endangered species and majority of them had just been planted.
There are eightbuffalo and hippo snares as well as five elephant snares that were found and destroyed by the rangers but the greatest t challenge is that Uganda’s laws are still so weak to address such cases like poaching. The punishment of paying about Shs 1m as fine or two years in jail is not hard enough to teach poachers a lesson. Something harsher should be established.
Gorilla safari news
