The Sunday News
Dumisani Nsingo recently in Dete
A MAN from Dete suspected to be part of a syndicate that killed about 300 elephants and countless other wild animals through cyanide poisoning late last year is on the run, amid revelations that sporadic killings of the jumbos using the chemical was still continuing.
Nkosinathi Vundla of Mtuya suburb managed to outsmart Forestry Commission rangers in a failed attempt to arrest him late last month.
The Sunday News crew visited Vundla’s residence in the densely populated Mtuya suburb three weeks ago, four days after he fled his home for fear of being arrested.
Mtuya is made up of predominantly mud houses with thatch roofs.
“He has not been home for the past four days after he ran away from the Forestry Commission people and a member of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) that wanted to arrest him for killing an elephant. They searched the house and found cyanide, which they suspected might have been used to kill the animal,” said one of the suspect’s relatives on condition of anonymity.
The chief conservator of forests in the Forestry Commission, Mr Armstrong Tembo, confirmed the development.
He said Forestry Commission details came across a dead elephant at Ngamo Forestry on 23 March and suspected that it might have died as a result of poisoning. The team then decided to lay an ambush the following day and managed to see Vundla arriving at the scene with an axe which he used to chop the elephant’s tusks.
“When the suspect had started chopping the tusk from the carcass a vehicle from the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZPWMA) passed near the scene and this prompted him to run away in fear of being apprehended.
“Our details that had laid an ambush recognised him and followed him to his place of residence in the company of detectives. The investigation team reached his home but he had already made good his escape. They only spoke to his wife and later searched the house and found the axe which he was using and five kilogrammes of cyanide,” Mr Tembo said.
He said the suspect was still on the run while part of the elephant’s carcass and the cyanide were taken for tests.
ZPWMA Senior Warden Trumber Jura confirmed the incident but could not be drawn into divulging more details stating that it was being handled by the Forestry Commission.
“I heard about the incident but it didn’t happen within the National Park but took place in an area overseen by the Forestry Commission but I understand that a team from that side is working on the issue of elephant poisoning,” Snr Warden Jura said.
However, Matabeleland North provincial police spokesperson Assistant Inspector Eglon Nkala said the report of the incident did not reach the police’s provincial headquarters.
