Gunmen killed at least six rangers and wounded several others in a trap in the eastern Demungian Republic of Congo’s Virunga National Park, a sanctuary for endangered mountain gorillas, the park said.
The identity of the attackers was not immediately clear, said Olivier Mukisya, a spokesperson for Virunga. Previous attacks on rangers have been blamed on several militias fighting for control of land and natural resources in eastern Congo.
‘We’ve confirmed this sad news. “A group of gunmen attacked our positions in the Nyamitwitwi region in the middle of Virunga National Park,” Mukisya told Reuters.
More than 200 rangers have been killed in the past, 12 of them in the deadliest attack in recent memory in April last year.
Dozens of armed groups are operating in eastern Congo, many remnants of militias fighting around the turn of the century in civil wars, resulting in millions of deaths due to conflict, famine and disease.
Virunga sits on the forest-covered volcanoes of Central Africa and houses more than half of the world population of mountain gorillas.
It is Africa’s oldest national park and the largest tropical rainforest reserve, covering an area of 7,800 square kilometers.