NAIROBI, Kenya — Corrupt Kenyan wildlife rangers are killing poachers to cover up the officers’ collusion with the criminals slaughtering the country’s elephants, a rights group alleges.
The disappearances of 18 poaching suspects were documented by Muslims for Human Rights during the past three years around Kenya’s Tsavo National Park, a wildlife sanctuary that hosted 25,000 elephants in the 1970s but which has only 11,000 today.
Eight of the poaching suspects were last seen in the custody of Kenya Wildlife Service officers. Their bodies were discovered in forests after being eaten by animals, said Francis Auma, an official with the rights group. Ten others were shot dead by rangers, according to witnesses, Auma said.
Rangers committed the murders to cover up their involvement with the poachers in killing elephants for their ivory, according to the report which interviewed Kenya Wildlife Service rangers whose identities were not revealed.
A Kenya Wildlife Service spokesman declined to commen.
