War-hit DRC national park turns to chocolate gorillas in conservation push
Clarisse Kyakimwa has been working her small cocoa farm for three years.
'The cocoa has several benefits. It helps me send my children to school, feed them, pay my hospital bills,' she said.
Buyers take her crop to the Virunga factory, but she has not seen the finished product: a glistening chocolate rendering of a full-grown gorilla with its arms on the shoulders of one of its young.
'They say the chocolate is taken abroad. I've never seen the chocolate since we're not used to eating it,' Kyakimwa said.
Instability has been a problem at Virunga since well before M23's latest advance.
'With the insecurity we're seeing in the region, it's sometimes difficult to access the raw material, which is cocoa,' said Roger Marora, master chocolatier and a native of North Kivu province.
The UN and Western governments said Rwanda has provided arms and troops to M23. Rwanda denied backing M23 and said its military has acted in self-defence against the DRC's army and a militia founded by perpetrators of the 1994 genocide.
Mediation efforts by African leaders and Qatar have not yet yielded a ceasefire.
Virunga National Park director Emmanuel de Merode said: 'The chocolate gorillas symbolise the park's resilience in the face of many threats.'
Reuters
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