BRITAIN: The northern white rhino, one of the world's most endangered animals, could be extinct in the wild within months unless poaching by Sudanese rebels stops, conservationists said yesterday as they launched an appeal for funds.
The world's 25 or so remaining wild white rhinos all live in the Garamba National Park, a United Nations world heritage site on the northern border of the Democratic Republic of Congo with Sudan.
Mr Kes Hillman-Smith, a co-ordinator of the Garamba National Park project, said poaching had increased as Sudanese rebels, said to be from the area of conflict around Darfur, hunt down the rhinos for their valuable horns and tusks.
"It is the first time they have come into Garamba," said Mr Hillman-Smith, in London for a meeting organised by the UK Save The Rhino group.
"It's a worrying situation if the poaching continues at such an alarming rate.
"Unless there is a major level of support, we are going to lose the last population of northern white rhinos. We urgently need more funds to bring in better equipment."
The rhino numbers have dwindled from almost 500 in the late 1970s. Last week, two park rangers were killed by a group of poachers, said Mr Hillman-Smith.
The Garamba National Park has long been a magnet for poachers who prey on its rich wildlife, which also includes elephants, hippos, buffaloes and chimpanzees.
The UN cultural heritage body UNESCO runs a project to protect wildlife from the effects of violence in Congo, which is struggling to emerge from a five-year regional conflict that killed at least three million people, mostly from starvation and disease.
The US has been involved in efforts to reach a peace deal between Sudan's government and the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, a group which has been fighting for some 20 years for autonomy for the mainly Christian and animist south.