A dozen Virunga Park rangers were among 17 people killed Saturday morning in Africa’s oldest natural preserve, according to a statement from the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature. Three others were injured, one of whom remains in critical condition. The rangers, whose ages ran from 23 to 40, were returning to headquarters when they saw a civilian vehicle under attack and rushed to defend it, but they found themselves subject to “a ferociously violent and sustained ambush,” according to the statement. The Institute blamed the deaths on “FDLR-FOCA,” a Congolese rebel group. The statement reads, “All those that lost their lives leave behind families, colleagues, parents and grieving friends...The Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature will spare no effort to bring to justice, in accordance with the law, the perpetrators of this vile attack.” Virunga Park, established in 1925 in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a major habitat of the Mountain Gorilla. It is currently closed over fears that tourists could spread the novel coronavirus to the endangered great apes. The park also closed in 2018 after a deadly kidnapping of tourists.
