Africa's Oldest Wildlife Reserve Struggles to Survive
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Virunga rangers play a traditional board game between park duties in 2007. Their primary responsibilities are protecting the wildlife. Twenty have been killed in confrontations with poachers and militias in the last three years.
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Tours to track mountain gorillas were a major attraction at Virunga until the park closed in 2012. Tourism has re-opened with the addition of more than 200 rangers and reduced armed conflict in the area.
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Local communities around the park responded to the threat of outside militias by forming their own small armies called Mai Mai. They often recruit child soldiers at checkpoints such as this one near Goma in 1997.
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A truckload of rebel supporters of Laurent Nkunda drove through the park on a November day in 2008. Nkunda is a former Democratic Republic of Congo general whose miltias support Tutsi interests in the region.