By Spoorthy Raman (Mongabay)

For primate sanctuaries in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the year 2025 has begun with panic, worry and uncertainty as they are caught between the ongoing armed conflict in the eastern parts of the country and a controversial request from the country’s conservation authority, the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature, or ICCN).

“Everybody is really worried,” said Sara Rosenberg, who volunteered at the two-decade-old Lwiro Primates Rehabilitation Centre (CRPL) in Lwiro village in DRC’s South Kivu province, where Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have recently captured the province’s capital city and the airport. “The war is really bad news for the wild chimps, and now the safe ones are also now at risk.”

The risk she’s talking about stems from an out-of-the-blue request letter handed to the Lwiro sanctuary on Jan. 7 by officials from ICCN’s headquarters in DRC’s capital city, Kinshasa, who were at the sanctuary’s door. The letter requested that the sanctuary transfer 12 chimpanzees to the Kinshasa Zoological Garden located more than 2,200 kilometers (1,367 miles) away. The sanctuary is currently home to more than 120 chimpanzees.

Four days later, on Jan. 11, ICCN sent a follow-up letter addressed to the Lwiro sanctuary director, justifying its request for “preferably juvenile” chimpanzees. The letter, which Mongabay has a copy of, noted that during ICCN’s 10th session on Dec. 30, 2024, its board of directors instructed the general management to engage in a “vast program of development, rehabilitation, repopulation and scientific studies” that aims to “better protect and conserve the species of great apes of the Democratic Republic of Congo,” including endangered eastern chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii).

However, the Lwiro sanctuary refused to part with its chimpanzees and alerted the local government, provincial ICCN representatives and civil society organizations.

Read the full article at https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/drc-government-directive-triggers-panic-in-ape-sanctuaries-amid-ongoing-conflict/