JUBA: All sides in South Sudan’s civil war have slaughtered wildlife including elephant, giraffe and antelope, conservationists said Thursday, warning huge efforts must be made to protect the surviving animal population.
In a report released on World Wildlife Day, conservationists said gunmen had devastated one of Africa’s largest animal migrations, yet another victim of an ongoing civil war marked by atrocities in which tens of thousands of people have been killed.
The US-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which backs government efforts to protect its natural resources, warned of an “alarming expansion of illegal exploitation and trafficking.”
It said there had been a “sharp rise” in recent months of commercial bush meat poaching of antelopes, elephant killing, ivory smuggling, logging of trees, charcoal production and gold mining, damaging formerly pristine forests.
Elephants have been slaughtered for their tusks, while giraffe and antelope have been mowed down with machine guns for meat to feed the tens of thousands of soldiers and rebels battling each other since December 2013.
“The various armed forces across the country have been implicated in cases of large-scale wildlife poaching, both for consumption and commercial trafficking,” WCS said, adding that “international actors” were also believed to be involved.
Eastern regions are home to giant herds of antelope, including tiang, white-eared kob and reedbuck, as well as giraffe, lion, cheetah and vast bird populations.
The wilderness is the largest area of intact savannah eco-system left in east Africa, and in terms of numbers, the circular migration of animals rivals that of Kenya’s iconic Maasai Mara and Tanzania’s Serengeti ecosystems.
“There is cause for great concern for many vulnerable species in the country, particularly elephant, giraffe, and tiang populations,” WCS said. In a gloomy assessment, it said ongoing surveys had confirmed “that some of these wildlife populations have managed to survive in some areas.”
“There is still hope to protect these populations and halt the expanding poaching and trafficking pressures,” WCS added.
The report comes a day after the United Nations warned that the country’s humanitarian crisis is worsening, with the warring sides “dragging their feet” in implementing an August peace deal.
Previously, animals — and people — have survived in the remote marsh areas of the Sudd, the world’s largest freshwater swamp, in the Upper Nile and Unity regions.
For the first time in South Sudan’s conflicts, government troops however now have amphibious tanks, able to enter previously isolated swamp zones to hunt down opposition.
Last month, 19 government soldiers and 11 civilians were arrested for commercial bush meat poaching and trafficking by government wildlife rangers, with sacks of dried meat of more than 60 antelope, WCS said.
South Sudan’s wildlife service chief, General Philip Chol Majak has said he “fears that hundreds” of elephants have been killed.
The survival of South Sudan’s wildlife was once a rare cause for hope in a land left in ruins by the decades of conflict that paved the way for its independence in 2011.
Before civil war broke out, the government said there were some 5,000 elephants, although WCS’ estimation was far lower, at around 2,500 animals.
‘Alarming’ rise in wildlife slaughter: Conservationists
‘Alarming’ rise in wildlife slaughter: Conservationists
Thousands rally against immigration enforcement in subzero Minnesota temperatures
- Protesters have gathered daily in the Twin Cities since Jan. 7, when 37-year-old mother of three Renee Good was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer
MINNEAPOLIS: Police arrested about 100 clergy demonstrating against immigration enforcement at Minnesota’s largest airport Friday, and thousands gathered in downtown Minneapolis despite Arctic temperatures to protest the Trump administration’s crackdown.
The protests are part of a broader movement against President Donald Trump’s increased immigration enforcement across the state, with labor unions, progressive organizations and clergy urging Minnesotans to stay away from work, school and even shops. The faith leaders gathered at the airport to protest deportation flights and urge airlines to call for an end to to what the Department of Homeland Security has called its largest-ever immigration enforcement operation.
The clergy were issued misdemeanor citations of trespassing and failure to comply with a peace officer and were then released, said Jeff Lea, a Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman. They were arrested outside the main terminal at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport because they went beyond the reach of their permit for demonstrating and disrupted airline operations, he said.
Rev. Mariah Furness Tollgaard of Hamline Church in St. Paul said police ordered them to leave but she and others decided to stay and be arrested to show support for migrants, including members of her congregation who are afraid to leave their homes. She planned to go back to her church after her brief detention to hold a prayer vigil.
“We cannot abide living under this federal occupation of Minnesota,” Tollgaard said.
Protesters demand ICE leave Minnesota
The Rev. Elizabeth Barish Browne traveled from Cheyenne, Wyoming, to participate in the rally in downtown Minneapolis, where the high temperature was minus 9 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 degrees Celsius) despite a bright sun.
“What’s happening here is clearly immoral,” the Unitarian Universalist minister said. “It’s definitely chilly, but the kind of ice that’s dangerous to us is not the weather.”
Protesters have gathered daily in the Twin Cities since Jan. 7, when 37-year-old mother of three Renee Good was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. Federal law enforcement officers have repeatedly squared off with community members and activists who track their movements.
Sam Nelson said he skipped work so he could join the march. He said he’s a former student of the Minneapolis high school where federal agents detained someone after class earlier this month. That arrest led to altercations between federal officers and bystanders.
“It’s my community,” Nelson said. “Like everyone else, I don’t want ICE on our streets.”
Organizers said Friday morning that more than 700 businesses statewide have closed in solidarity with the movement, from a bookstore in tiny Grand Marais near the Canadian border to the landmark Guthrie Theater in downtown Minneapolis.
“We’re achieving something historic,” said Kate Havelin of Indivisible Twin Cities, one of the more than 100 participating groups.
Detention of a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old
A 2-year-old was reunited with her mother Friday, a day after she was detained with her father outside of their home in South Minneapolis, lawyer Irina Vaynerman told The Associated Press.
Vaynerman said they had quickly challenged the family’s detention in federal court. The petition states that the child, a citizen of Ecuador, was brought to the US as a newborn. The child and her father, Elvis Tipan Echeverria, both have a pending asylum application and neither are subject to final orders of removal.
A US district judge on Thursday had barred the government from transferring the toddler out of state, but she and her father were on a commercial flight to Texas about 20 minutes later, according to court filings. They were flown back Friday.
Agents arrested Tipan Echeverria during a targeted operation, according to a DHS statement said. DHS said the child’s mother was in the area but refused to take the child.
Vaynerman rejected that explanation, saying Tipan Echeverria was “not allowed” to bring his 2-year-old to her mother inside their home.
DHS repeated its allegation Friday that the father of 5-year-old Liam Ramos abandoned him during his arrest by immigration officers in Columbia Heights on Tuesday, leading to the child being detained, too.
Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Liam was detained because his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, “fled from the scene.” The two are detained together at the Dilley Detention Center in Texas, which is intended to hold families. McLaughlin said officers tried to get Liam’s mother to take him, but she refused to accept custody.
The family’s attorney Marc Prokosch said he thinks the mother refused to open the door to the ICE officers because she was afraid she would be detained. Columbia Heights district superintendent Zena Stenvik said Liam was “used as bait.”
Prokosch found nothing in state records to suggest Liam’s father has a criminal history.
On Friday, Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino sought to shift the narrative away from Liam’s detention by attacking the news media for, in his view, insufficient coverage of children who have lost parents to violence by people in the country illegally. After briefly mentioning the 5-year-old during a news conference, he talked about a mother of five who was killed in August 2023.
Details from Good’s autopsy
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner posted an initial autopsy report online for Good that classified her death as a homicide and determined she died from “multiple gunshots wounds.”
A more detailed independent autopsy commissioned by Good’s family said one bullet pierced the left side her head and exited on the right side. This autopsy, released Wednesday through the Romanucci & Blandin law firm, said bullets also struck her in the arm and breast, although those injuries weren’t immediately life-threatening.
Antonio Romanucci, an attorney for the family, said in a statement that the family is still awaiting the full report from the medical examiner and “hope that they communicate with Renee’s family and share their report before releasing any further information to the public.”
A spokesperson for the firm said there were no funeral plans to share yet.
