Congolese soldiers in collaboration with park rangers have initiated an operation to locate and rescue two British tourists kidnapped in the country’s volatile eastern borderlands, an army spokesman revealed.
Unidentified gunmen ambushed the group on Friday morning north of Goma, the capital of Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu province, inside Virunga National Park.
Major Guillaume Kaiko Ndjike, the army’s spokesman in North Kivu, said on Saturday "With Virunga National Park being within our zone of action, we had joined the park rangers for search operations for the people taken hostages."
Britain’s Foreign Office said on Friday that it was in contact with the Congolese authorities after a kidnap incident involving two British nationals, adding that its staff were providing support to their families.
Eastern Congo has experienced massive successive incidents of violence over the past two and a half decades and was at the epicenter of two wars between 1996 and 2003 that led to the killing of millions, majorly from hunger and disease.
Rebel groups and militias still control large swathes of the territory. More than 175 rangers have died protecting Virunga National Park, which is located in the rocky mountains and volcanic plains adjacent to neighboring Rwanda and Uganda.
Nevertheless it has continued to attract a growing number of visitors who are keen to visit its endangered mountain gorillas and the active Nyiragongo volcano.
