ARMY’S NEW FRONT IN FIGHT On the trail of elephant killers who fund terror

Desperate authorities have sent an SOS to the British Army to help them defend their last remaining elephants.

In response, 16 hand selected infantrymen, predominantly from 2nd Battalion The Rifles, are stationed in the Mokekou Jungle Training Camp near Lope.

They are working alongside overworked and unarmed park rangers – many going into battle in jelly sandals or flip-flops – against slaughter gangs who carry rocketpropelled grenades and AK47s.

Intelligence shows these poachers are linked to extremist group Boko Haram in Nigeria and have killed 25,000 forest elephants in the past 10 years in one Gabon region alone.

To stem the tide in ivory, the Army has been to Kenya, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Ethiopia in the past five years in a bid to train 145 officers capable of providing info on the ground about poachers’ movements.

Finishing the latest stage in Gabon this month they have already trained 80 to a high standard. One intelligence officer, who has been on several of the trips, revealed the border areas are the biggest poaching weak spots. He said, “Animals and poachers don’t respect borders.

“Poachers manipulate this by operating in border regions where it is easier to slip in and out. Therefore we need to make sure there is instant communication and shared intelligence through all countries.”

Poachers will stop at nothing to snare elephants, often using children of pygmies – a threatened indigenous people on the edge of the Gabon forests – as mules.

Three pygmy children were arrested carrying 40kg of ivory on their backs earlier this year. The situation facing Africa’s elephants is critical. On the ground in Gabon, the Army have done everything from train rangers how to arrest poachers, seal crime scenes for gathering evidence and even set up WhatsApp groups among park managers to help them communicate immediately.

Rangers are also being trained to use AK47s to fight back, but critically Gabon authorities haven’t yet decided whether to arm them full time.

Previously rangers have simply tried to catch armed poachers off guard, run in and snatch their weapons – a deadly game.

Ranger Daniel Ebiaghe Essebe, 30, from Minkebe, has faced down deadly poachers numerous times. “Just imagine you’ve got a machete but the one you’re tracking has a gun. We were patrolling, six of us, around 8am one day.

“We came past a river and we heard voices. We split up and in an ambush we caught them in the middle. The poachers charged. They had Kalashnikovs, guns and knifes. How do you arrest them?”

We’ve been given exclusive access to secret drills. In unbearable humidity we shuffle silently through the jungle as the rangers, assisted by British troops, spring an ambush to arrest poachers during an exercise. The poachers are arrested, handcuffed and then shaken down for all evidence – hunting knifes, pieces of ivory or maps – and camps are smashed to pieces so they aren’t used again. Aside from bullets and grenades, the rangers also must dodge injury or disease in terrain that’s hours away from any treatment.

Lance Corporal Roseanna Rowbotham, 24, a paramedic adds, “We’ve been teaching rangers to treat gunshot wounds and snake bites – there’s loads of Gabon vipers and black mambas out here. Their medical knowledge is very limited, so it’s a thrill seeing the rangers learn how to save lives in an emergency. If they get injured out here they have little chance of outside treatment.”

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As well as the threat of snakes and malaria, British troops also face being charged by elephants or torn apart by gorillas.

Corporal Gyanendra Rai, 31, First Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles is the expert tracker tasked with imparting years