Kenya seizes massive ivory haul: Some of the tusks and rhino horns suspected to have come from Tanzania

It was one of Africa’s biggest ivory hauls.

Officials said the tusks were hidden in wooden boxes shaped like coffins, and that blood traces on them indicated that the animals had been killed recently.

Sniffer dogs found the nearly 300 kilogrammes of ivory at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta Airport in cargo crates coming from Mozambique on a Kenya Airways flight, the director of the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), Julius Kipng’etich, told reporters late on Tuesday.

’’The rhino horns are freshly cut and one of them has a bullet wound,’’ Kipng’etich said, adding: ’’It’s a sad moment. Remember all wildlife, wherever it is, is a world heritage. So if we lose any, it’s a loss to all of us as a human race.’’

Kipng’etich said the animals must have been poached from southern African countries like Tanzania, Zimbabwe or South Africa as Mozambique has no rhinos and hardly any elephants.

According to the WWF conservation group, the whole continent has about 18,000 rhinos left, while sub-Saharan Africa has 690,000 elephants at most – where once they were millions.

Ivory demand in Asia is stimulating poaching by international criminal rings, wildlife experts say.

Source: AHU – David A-O