Cameroon's military has been called in to Bouba Ndjida National Park to take on foreign poachers that have slaughtered hundreds of elephants for their ivory, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Reports vary, but between 200-480 elephants have been killed in recent weeks in the park by what is widely assumed to be poachers from Sudan.
Cameroon's military has been called in to Bouba Ndjida National Park to take on foreign poachers that have slaughtered hundreds of elephants for their ivory, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Reports vary, but between 200-480 elephants have been killed in recent weeks in the park by what is widely assumed to be poachers from Sudan.
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"We saw this situation coming," Basile Yapo Monssan, WWF-Cameroon's Country Director, said. "We have consistently alerted the government on the alarming growing rate of poaching in Cameroon. This is their wake-up call."
The poachers are heavily armed, including machines guns, and on horseback, meanwhile there are only six wildlife rangers in the massive, remote park. For two months they poachers have terrorized the park, perhaps extinguishing the estimated 400 elephants believed to be in the park.
According to WWF sources, over a hundred soldiers entered Bouba Ndjida National Park last Thursday. There is no word yet on how the operation is progressing.
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