Kenyan authorities have seized at least two tons of illegal elephant ivory at the port of Mombasa which was destined for Indonesia.
Gitau Gitau, Kenya Revenue Authority regional commissioner in charge of the port, said today that customs officers had impounded 638 pieces of elephant tusk in a container claiming to carry “decoration stones”.
He said the tusks were from Tanzania.
The seizure comes over a week after 11 elephants were killed in a Kenyan park and their tusks chopped off.
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Elephant poaching deaths are on the rise across Africa because of increased demand from Asia - and particularly from China - for ivory trinkets. Poor African villagers can earn vast sums for killing an elephant and taking its tusks.
AP