Ten elephants were found dead in the Bouba Ndjida Park in northern Cameroon region following a routine patrol of the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR), deployed since last year by the government to lend a hand to ecoguards. According to the first survey conducted by police elements, all these elephants were killed in less than a week.
Poachers are from abroad, including South Sudan, and “heavily armed that benefited from internal conspiracies,” notes the survey.
“We have heard of the presence of these riders in the park with a French tourist,” said the officials of the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife.
In 2012, “the poachers of another kind, traveling on horseback and equipped with powerful weapons slaughtered in two months 128 elephants” in the park of 220,000 hectares, of which 70,000 hectares were unmanned.
This had prompted the government response that eventually deployed the army, in this case, BIR, to ensure the safety of the space.
In all likelihood, because of the incursions of the terrorist sect Boko Haram, several soldiers were assigned elsewhere, providing the opportunity to poachers who had been beaten back, to resume their activities.