US using sanction policy against DRC
The United States has imposed sanctions on six people who contributed to the recent conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
All these
individuals contribute to the current situation in eastern DRC and are accused
of human rights violations in many cases, the United States claimed.
The US
previously punished three DRC conservation officials for their participation in
different actions, including the trafficking of gorillas and chimpanzees.
Officers,
Cosma Wilungula Balongelwa, former Director General of the Institute for
Conservation of Nature (ICCN), Leonard Muamba Kanda, former Head of Department,
former Head of Department of the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Congo and ICCN director and
Augustin Ngumbi Amuri, CITES director-coordinator and ICCN legal advisor, are
among the mentioned people, who the US imposed sanctions on them.
The Virunga
National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is home to a third of the
world's mountain gorillas, classified as endangered by the International Union
for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The country
shares with its neighbors Rwanda and Uganda a tropical rainforest in the
volcanic region that is home to around 1,000 mountain gorillas.
Thanks to conversation efforts, the number of the mountain gorillas has increased over the last two decades, which led the IUCN in 2018 to downgrade the status of the great apes from 'critically endangered' to 'endangered' species.
