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gorillas—one of them pregnant—from his family. Another of the females was known to have recently given birth. Her baby was thought to have run away and died, hidden deeper in the bush. It was an eerie sight. Trailed by others bearing the bod- ies of the dead females, Senkwekwe’s attendants headed to the park’s headquarters, north of the city of Goma. A burial ground had been established there for the gorillas. “It was a long walk and these are heavy animals,” Stirton later told a reporter. “Usually, when you get a group of Africans, there is singing and laughter, but not on this occasion. Everyone was silent, it was very reverent .” The killing of so many gorillas at one time was considered a major tragedy. Even the Congo- lese villagers, felt devastated. Conservationists believe that there are now fewer than 800 mountain gorillas in the entire world. Virunga, estab- lished in 1925, is Africa’s oldest national park, and home to about a quarter of them. Back in 2007, when the distress- ing massacre took place, the park was part of an actual war zone. The Congolese army, along with almost 20 recognized paramilitary groups and untold numbers of determined reb- el fighters, were using portions of Virunga as a battleground

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