POACHERS' hell on earth

The Mozambican police put out of operation three gangs of poachers last weekend, according to a report in Wednesday’s issue of the independent newssheet 'Mediafax'. The poachers had been operating in the Limpopo National Park, in the southern province of Gaza, and in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. These successes are attributed to the work of the recently created police unit for the protection of natural resources and the environment, and to coordination between the police, other government institutions and the authorities of neighbouring countries. According to a source in the National Administration of Conservation Areas (ANAC), cited by 'Mediafax', the poaching gangs clashed with the police on three successive days – Friday, Saturday and Sunday - inside the Limpopo National Park. The first group, consisting of four poachers, was intercepted on Friday night at a police checkpoint. Although the police waved the vehicle down, ordering it to stop, the poachers made a run for it, and drove through thecheckpoint. The police radioed ahead to the next checkpoint. Once again the poachers ignored the order to stop, but this time the police opened fire. One of the poachers was hit, but managed to survive. On searching the vehicle, the police found a firearm of a type ussually used by poachers. On Saturday a group of seven poachers was ambushed by a combined force of Mozambican and South African police. Three of the poachers were subdued and arrested, but the other four managed to get awau. In another operation on Sunday, also by the police forces of the two countries, two poachers were arrested, while another escaped. In what seems to be yet another separate incident, reported by the Maputo daily 'Noticias', without giving the exact date, a 34 year old poacher, Winasse Muthevui was injured fatally after a shoot-out with the police inside the Limpopo National Park. An accomplice escaped. Jeremias Langa, the press officer in the Gaza Provincia Police Command, said Muthevui was taken tothe Chokwe Rural Hospital, where he passed away. Before he died, he confessed that he owned the two guns the police seized at the scene, and that he and his accomplice had been returning from the Kruger Park where they had gone to hunt rhinoceros. The report did not say whether they had succeeded in killing any rhinos.