Two Virunga National Park rangers have been killed and a third injured, authorities at the renamed reserve, located in the troubled east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, said on Saturday.
Virunga Park covers part of North Kivu (nearly 60,000 km2), especially along the border with Rwanda and Uganda.
A jewel of nature famous for its mountain gorillas and volcanoes, this reserve is also infested with armed groups.
The rangers "
conducted a routine patrol in Chondo in the central sector
" of the park, the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN) said in a statement.
The two ecoguards killed were 29 and 31 years old.
According to ICCN, they were attacked by "
a group of armed men assimilated to the Mai-Mai
", community militias.
Read alsoThe eternal return of rebellions in eastern Congo
The rebels of the March 23 Movement (M23), a former rebellion of Congolese Tutsi supported by Rwanda and Uganda, have seized vast territories in the east of the DRC in recent months, and occupy large portions of the Virunga, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The spokesperson for the oldest nature reserve in Africa, Bienvenu Bwende, had recently indicated that “
the mountain gorilla zone is occupied by the rebels
” and that as such, the teams cannot deploy there.
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