Officials from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) have identified the West Nile Sub-region as a new front for traffickers of wildlife products.
This is a departure from the routes hitherto used by the traffickers in western Uganda through Ishasha, Mpondwe and Bunagana due to increased vigilance by the customs officials.
Wildlife crime is a lucrative business that is transnational. Uganda has been labelled as a country where the wildlife products are illegally procured as well as trafficked before they are taken to the Middle East.
The programme manager for IFAW, Mr Moses Olinga, said in an interview in Arua on Tuesday that the products mainly come from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), South Sudan and West Africa.
“There has been a shift to the northern route, specifically West Nile, where we have had incidents of ivory passing through the Vurra border, Oraba, and Goli customs. So, a number of arrests have been made by Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) in Arua, Nebbi and Koboko and people who are arrested give us this information,” Mr Olinga said.
He said traffickers tell them that they feel they can only get a market for their wildlife products in Uganda. He added that the high demand in the black international market and poverty were fuelling the trafficking of wildlife products.
IFAW now wants to train Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), Internal Security Organisation, External Security Organisation, migration and other related security agencies manning border security on how to detect the cross-border movement of such wildlife products.
The trade is done in concealment and its detection is one of the biggest challenges authorities manning the border security face. Some of them are hidden among the goods and mostly, they travel late in the night, making it hard to detect the illegal wildlife products.
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