Haut-Lomami: around a hundred elephants roaming in the Malemba Nkulu territory

Kamina, February 15^th, 2026 (CPA).- Around a hundred elephants have left Upemba National Park and are roaming in the Ngoyi Manyi group, Badia sector, Malemba Nkulu territory, in the province of Haut-Lomami, south-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, CPA has learned on Friday from administrative sources. « More than a hundred elephants are wandering and have taken up residence in the Ngoyi Manyi group, Badia sector since January 6^th, 2026, taking hostage a population estimated at more than 300,000 inhabitants of the villages of the Ngoyi Manyi group without means of survival, defence or rescue, » has declared Banze Katolo Bitumbuka, head of the Badia sector. In his official message to the authorities of the Malemba Nkulu territory, Mr Katolo has specified that these pachyderms have devastated all the fields and plantations of palm trees, bananas and sugar cane, with a provisional toll of more than 1,800,000 tonnes of food reserves destroyed. ‘We are calling for urgent measures to be taken to drive these pachyderms back to the park and to provide care and humanitarian assistance to the families affected by the damage caused by this ecological disaster,’ has insisted the sector chief. For his part, the honorary deputy Paul Ngoyi Nsenga Bin Thelu of the Malemba Nkulu territory, who has spoken to CPA, has deplored the silence of the park officials, who have not planned any repatriation operations to avoid the conflict between humans and elephants, as in the Upemba group, Butumba chiefdom in the Bukama territory of the same province. In December of last year, three people have been killed and a woman seriously injured in the Kabumbulu group, Mulongo chiefdom, in the same Malemba Nkulu territory. ACP/