Official: Mountain gorillas surviving despite Congo conflict

Dec 23, 2008, 11:34 GMT

Nairobi - Mountain gorillas living in a Congolese national park controlled by rebels battling the government are doing well despite the conflict, the director of the park said Tuesday after rangers gained access for the first time in 15 months.

Rangers have not been able to access the gorillas in the Virunga National Park, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, since rebel Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda's men forced them out.

However, a deal has now been struck to allow the rangers to begin working in the south of the 7,800 square-kilometre park again.

'We were very worried about the mountain gorillas...but ICCN (Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature) rangers have already seen many of the mountain gorilla families and we are happy to report that most of them seem to be doing well,' Virunga National Park director, Emmanuel de Merode, said in a statement.

Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) has been involved in fierce battles with the government and other militia groups over the last few months.

Over 250,000 people have been displaced by the fighting.

The World Widlife Fund (WWF) said that despite the deal in the southern area of the park, the rest of the park remained insecure.

The WWF has been distributing firewood from renewable sources to tens of thousands of internally displaced living in camps around the national park.

'WWF believes that the needs of people displaced by the fighting and the gorillas are inextricably linked,' said Dr. Susan Lieberman, Director of WWF International's Species Programme.

Virunga was set up in 1925 to create a sanctuary for mountain gorillas and other species. It runs along the border with Rwanda and Uganda. At the last count 380 mountain gorillas lived there.

The gorillas' habitat is being threatened by the conflict and encroachment for farming and settlement, the WWF said.