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One person was killed and 14 others wounded in clashes near a gorilla sanctuary in the DRC, where friction between park guards and Pygmies has increased, sources said Friday.
The violence took place near the Kahuzi Biega National Park, a UNESCO heritage site located in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a real refuge for the world's largest gorilla species.
"A protection patrol that was pursuing two poachers was ambushed on Wednesday by Pygmies armed with machetes, bows and arrows," Park spokesman Hubert Mulongoy said.
"Thirteen park wardens were wounded in the conflict, three of them seriously," he said. "One of the seriously injured had his fingers sliced by a machete."
Moreover, Ntavuna Cizungu, representative of a community of Pygmies living on the edge of the park, told AFP that a Pygmy named Lwaboshi Simba had been shot dead during the clash "and had died immediately ".
Another pygmy was injured, he said.
Mulongoy said that there had been a "resurgence of tension in recent days between indigenous peoples and the park".
In April, a guard was killed in a clash, said the park, denying the fact that this episode was badociated with the death of a pygmy the day before.
Pygmies are unhappy to be denied access to Kahuzi Biega.
The park claims that they entered the shrine illegally between August and October of last year and that they have been committing acts of "deforestation" since then.
Park wardens are mainly recruited from former soldiers and police and include a number of Pygmies.
Kahuzi Biega, which owes its name to two extinct volcanoes, is the only place in the world where visitors can see gorillas from the plains of the east in the wild, says the park on its website.
The 6,000-square-kilometer (2,300-square-mile) safe haven, created in 1970, attracts wealthy tourists and is a major source of revenue for the DRC.
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