Poachers have killed guards that were tasked with guarding elephants in the Republic of Congo's Garamba National Park, according to the Science Alert. The ten guards exchanged fire with the poachers in the Azande hunting area Wednesday before officials were able to be rescue six of the rangers by an African Parks helicopter. When they came back for the remaining four Thursday, they found that the four rangers had been killed.
With the number of guards versus poachers on the rise, said Garamba's park manager, this latest tragedy doubles the number of guards killed this year, up to eight. Garamba National Park, unfortunately, is home to Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army, in addition to the many poachers.
The ten rangers were on patrol, tracking an elephant's radio transmitter collar, which led them to the poacher's camp, according to The Express.
The rangers were quickly outnumbered by the poachers, who opened fire on three of the park's wildlife wardens, and a member of the Congolese Armed Forces assisting with the patrols was killed in the shoot-out.
"We have increasingly and more fiercely started to expand our protection zone to cover the whole park in the last six months and this has obviously brought us in to a number of confrontations with various armed groups," said Gamamba's Park Manager Erik Mararv.
The African elephant numbers are down by over 60 percent during the last decade, The Independent reported. This amount to staggering and horrifying numbers for those trying desperately to keep them alive and from becoming extinct. Roughly 30,000 elephants are killed each year due to the high demand for ivory in Asian countries.
