Yet another case of what seems to be a government-administrated slaughter of wild life in Zimbabwe, has occurred. On the 7th of November three black rhinos were shot to death by poachers on Imire Safari Ranch about an hour’s car ride from the capital Harare. One of the rhinos was pregnant and due to give birth that same week. Warning due to upsetting pictures.

The four black poachers wore camouflage clothing and had parked their car by a neighbouring farm. From there they went on foot to the game park. The white owners of the farm weren’t home but were out patrolling another area for poachers.

The four intruders assaulted and tied up a maid on the Imire farm. Two more farm workers were beaten up and forced to show the way to the rhinos’ pen. The poachers then overpowered, disarmed and tied up the guards by the pen.

The poachers fired several shots that killed three adult rhinos. Four baby rhinos that were in another pen survived the attack.

DJ, shot dead by poachers on Imire Safari Ranch. Photo: Imire Safari Ranch

Amber, killed only a week away from giving birth. Photo: Imire Safari Ranch

Amber’s unborn calf did not survive the attack on its mother. Photo: Imire Safari Ranch

Despite the rhinos having been dehorned six weeks earlier and their horns having regrown only a couple of inches, the poachers started hacking away at one of the animals to get at the horn but the sound of an approaching car made them flee to their car where all traces of them disappeared. The police were called for that same evening but didn’t arrive on the scene until the morning after.

A reward fund has been set up by the game park so that a reward can be given to anyone able to supply information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators who annihilated the black rhino breeding stock of the Imire Safari Ranch. For further information the owners of the farm can be contacted via e-mail imiregp (at) zol.co.zw

Tatenda, one of the rhino babies who survived but lost her mother DJ and her father Sprinter during the attack on Imire safari Ranch in the beginning of November. In this article’s first picture you can see how the poachers had hacked away at Sprinter despite the rhino having been dehorned. Photo: Imire Safari Ranch

The orphaned Tatenda is being bottle fed by one of Imire’s owners, Judy Travers, who is thanked with a big rhino kiss. Photo: Imire Safari Ranch

The elephants who often walk together with the rhinos on Imire Safari Ranch gathered where the rhinos were shot and just like elephants do when one of their own is killed, they tried to dig a grave. The elephants were visibly upset by the killing of the Imire rhinos. Poto: Imire Safari Ranch

Since the late 1990’s the white-owned farms in Zimbabwe have been fair game to the country’s dictator Mugabe and his hoodlums. Of formerly around 3500 white farmers now only a few hundred remain. Zimbabwe’s economy has capsized in direct correlation to the rate at which its white farmers have been persecuted, murdered and driven out of the country. Its people are facing constant threats of starvation catastrophies. In spite of this, white farmers who continue farming and animal keeping are even being prosecuted and risk being sentenced to prison.

Zimbabwe’s minister of lands, Didymus Mutasa, has said that the remaining white farmers will be forced out, one way or another, wrote British Telegraph in connection with the trials earlier this year of ten white farmers who refused to leave their lands.

“The position is that food shortages or no food shortages, we are going ahead to remove the remaining whites,” commented Mutasa.

Zimbabwians as well as the country’s wild life consequently face further suffering. As recently as in 2005 South African media reported that Mugabe had ordered employees at Zimbabwe’s national parks and nature management areas to kill wild animals to be used for feeding starving peasants in the countryside.

The attack on Imire Safari Ranch and its rhino population is yet another cruel setback for the decades of labour to preserve the unique fauna of Zimbabwe.

Charlotte Thorbjörnsson

The organisation AfricanCrisis have documented the cruelty that’s been perpetuated on the wild as well as domestic animals of Zimbabwe since the black seizure of power.Warning due to upsetting pictures.

Violence against white farmers and their black employees in Zimbabwe.Warning due to upsetting pictures.