200 elephants killed by poachers

JOHANNESBURG (AP):

Poachers have slaughtered at least 200 elephants in the past five weeks in a patch of Africa where they are more greatly endangered than anywhere else on Earth, wildlife activists said Thursday.

The money made from selling elephant tusks is fueling misery throughout the continent, the International Fund for Animal Welfare warned.

Many elephant calves orphaned by the recent killings have been spotted in Cameroon's Bouba Ndjida National Park, and activists fear the animals may soon die of hunger and thirst.

"Their deaths will only compound the impact of the poaching spree on the Cameroon's threatened elephant populations," the organisation said in a statement.

It is not known how many elephants remain in the West African nation. The latest figures from the International Union for Conservation of Nature estimated there were only 1,000 to 5,000 left in 2007.

The fund blamed poachers from Sudan, who, it said, were crossing through Chad to reach the remote northern Cameroonian wildlife reserve. Ongoing shooting is making it impossible to conduct a detailed assessment, activists said.

The fund said armed insurgents have crossed porous borders on poaching raids for years, but it called the scale of this year's killings "massive and unprecedented".