Survivors describe how rangers and staff were targeted by an armed group during a raid on DRC’s national park earlier this month
Nearby Congolese soldiers had received warnings of the attack in the morning. But the soldiers did not arrive until late in the evening, long after the killings were over.
It happened before dawn on Tuesday 3 March, as a dozen rangers at Upemba national park headquarters were being briefed by their commander before the day’s routine anti-poaching patrol. At 5.40am machine-gun fire began to rattle out of the surrounding darkness.
As many as 80 heavily armed fighters had crept in through the protected grasslands in south-east Democratic Republic of the Congo and encircled Lusinga, the park headquarters perched on a steep grassy ridge.
The few rangers scrambled to defend the base. But within half an hour, the attackers had overwhelmed them. They looted weapons and munitions, chanted war songs, and searched door-to-door for the targets on their kill list.
