45 elephants slaughtered this year in DRC National Park

AFP photo

By

Byobe Malenga

Around 45 elephants were slaughtered in the first half of 2017, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Garamba National Park, straddling the Dungu and Faradje (Haut-Uélé) territories. Aladji Somba, deputy head of the park, delivered the figures earlier to the press.

He attributes this poaching to Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, South Sudanese rebels, Mbororo breeders and local armed groups. Aladji Somba also indicates that the Garamba National Park faces several threats.

“We have pressure on park management. We have threats coming from neighboring countries like the LRA who come from the CAR and cross the border in search of ivory in the park. We have other threats from the rebels coming from South Sudan,” he said.

Compared to the first half of 2016, Aladji Somba acknowledged some progress in the management of the Garamba Park: “In the first half of 2016 we lost about 88 elephants.”

Covering an area of 12,500 km², the Garamba National Park has three hunting grounds.

Byobe Malenga

Byobe Malenga has experience spanning more than 11  years in Journalism, particularly in field reporting, editing, newscasting and management. He is currently working with the BBC World Service as a reporter in eastern Congo DR for Swahili desk, Radio, TV and online. In addition to this Byobe Malenga works as a media consultant in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is also the multimedia journalist, as well as Editor of the newspaper ‘Journal FIZI DAIMA ’.

Malenga has already participated in several reporting missions on behalf of radio stations such as Radio Television Groupe d’Avenir- Kinshasa as well as numerous training missions, animation workshops and support as the strategic planning and operational. He has already made several trips to Africa taking in Burundi, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe, South Sudan, Lesotho, Namibia, and Mozambique, the Republic of central Africa and the Congo Brazza and South Africa.

He has worked with the media (written and spoken press) for several years in various fields such as production of commercials, jingles, magazines, newspapers and other emissions. He has capitalized on the valuable experience of working with foreign radio in areas of partnership, social mobilization around water points, the setting-up of committees, etc.