Chimpanzee Roy, who is about three years old and was poached, probably, from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to Sudan, arrived by plane in Kenya, where his is going to live together with other 43 orphans at Sweetwaters Sanctuary. Roy was probably given as gift to corrupted authorities and waited a long time, more than ten months and part of the time chained in trees, to be rescued.

The Director of the Sanctuary, Martin Mulama, rescued Roy in the south of Sudan and took him to quarantine area of Kenya Wild Life Protection Service, for later transfer him to the sanctuary.

Bureaucracy delayed a lot the rescue and the CITES permissions for his transport had to be extended. While they were waiting for the authorizations, Roy stayed under the care of Sue and Rusty Knight, who had already rescued more than 14 orphan chimpanzees since 2006 (twelve of these chimpanzees went to a sanctuary in South Africa).

According to Doug Cress, PASA Executive Director, there is the estimative that 57 chimpanzees are rescued per year by Africa Sanctuaries, which indicates the primates’ hunting continues to happens intensely in some areas. Doug recognized the difficulties to do a rescue, but he considers that the support by environmentalists from Sudan and from Kenya Sanctuary was very important for the success of the operation.