For more than a week, the country has been ravaged by fighting that has left at least 400 dead. A reserve lacks food and fears that the lions will escape into the wild.
A Sudanese reserve is calling for help this Sunday: without electricity or food supplies, 25 starving lions risk ending up in the wild, at a time when the population is already suffering deadly fighting.
Since April 15, soldiers and paramilitaries have embarked on a merciless war that has already killed more than 400 people, mainly in the capital.
An hour’s drive southeast of Khartoum, the al-Baguir reserve is “in the vicinity of a military base in the throes of fighting”, says the Sudan animal rescue center (Sudan Animal Rescue Center) in a post on social media.
Despite the clashes, “we stay with the animals every day (…) but the lack of electricity is a real threat: our security devices (for the electric barriers) largely depend on it”, warns the reserve, which is calling for food and fuel for the generators.
Problems with running water, food and electricity
The reserve hosts 25 lions, of all ages, on more than four hectares, as well as “half a dozen hyenas, many monkeys, turtles, birds, six gazelles, two camels” and other domestic animals, specifies the text.
“Our car has been stolen and we can’t find any more gasoline”, still alarms the Sudan animal rescue centerin a country where running water and electricity are lacking and where food is becoming increasingly scarce.
Last year, volunteers from al-Baguir recounted how they took turns every day to distribute the daily five to ten kilos of meat needed by each of the felines.
The number of African lions in the world has fallen by 40% in three generations, alarms WWF. They are now just over 20,000 in the wild, including a handful in Sudan in Dinder National Park near the border with Ethiopia.
