Poachers have massacred 89 elephants in one night near the town of Ganba in southern Chad, conservation groups say. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said in a written statement on Tuesday that about 50 Arabic-speaking poachers on horseback carried out the mass killing of the elephants last week. The elephants killed last Thursday night, included 33 pregnant females and 15 calves, the WWF and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) said, citing local officials. The IFAW said the elephants’ tusks had been removed. The governments of Cameroon, the Central African Republic and Chad will meet in Yaounde this week to develop a regional anti-poaching strategy after conservationists said that elephants in Central Africa risked being wiped out by such slaughters. Bas Huijbregts, head of WWF’s campaign against illegal wildlife trade in the region, said the Chadian army was sent to stop the poachers. “This tragedy shows once again the existential threat faced by Central Africa’s elephants,” Huijbregts said. “In all likelihood this is the same group of Sudanese poachers who killed over 300 elephants in northern Cameroon in February 2012, forcing the country to mobilise its special forces to protect the region’s remaining elephants.”
