Authorities seize 33 tusks

2003-02-25 23:00

Nairobi - Wildlife authorities in Kenya said on Tuesday they had seized 33 elephants tusks and arrested five suspected poachers found transporting the ivory in the north of the country.

Game wardens of the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) intercepted a Landcruiser jeep carrying the ivory in the Lare Soro area of Marsabit district, near Kenya's border with Ethiopia, late on Sunday, a KWS spokesperson said.

It was not immediately clear where the suspects got the tusks or whether they had killed any elephants in Kenya, she added.

KWS will display the seized tusks at news conference in Nairobi later on Tuesday, she said.

Trade in ivory is banned under a treaty of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).

But at last year's Cites meeting in the Chilean capital Santiago, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa were allowed to sell some 60 tons of their ivory stockpiles, a decision that angered Kenya.

Kenya fears the decision to allow limited trade in ivory will endanger the safety of elephants in Africa, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the pachyderms are said to be heavily poached. - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA