How Rwanda’s mountain gorillas have prospered in times of peace – and offer us a lesson in tenderness, warmth and welcome
As we drive up the Rwandan highlands to see mountain gorillas in the wild, iconic movie scenes start to come to mind.
The image of King Kong at the summit of the Empire State Building with Ann Darrow in hand and Mighty Joe Young saving a child from the top of a ferris wheel.
As the mist moves down over the valley beyond the edge of the winding mountain-side road, we remember Gorillas In The Mist.
Dian Fossey’s book-turned Academy award-winning film charted her gorilla conservation efforts at Volcanoes National Park – the very park we are driving towards, and one of only three areas in the world where mountain gorillas exist.
Mr Gahinga, the alpha silverback of the Amahora family
In the manicured gardens of the base camp, I sit down with one of the most experienced guides at the park, Dusabimana Patience.
He first saw the gorillas in the wild as a child.
“I thought it was an older man who was there, but then they told me it was a gorilla,” he says.
“I was nearby but not too close because I was scared of them. I was like a hundred metres away.”
Patience has been working at the park for 24 years, his entire adult life.
“It’s like taking you home to visit my family, my own family, my children,” he said.
The mountain gorillas have been thriving
“I know them, they know me, we are attached.”
We trek across farmland with Patience and two other rangers through a rain cloud and up the side of a dormant volcano.
As we walk along the long border wall of hand-stacked volcanic rock, he picks up plastic litter and listens on his radio for the location of the gorilla family we are tracking.
We are about to meet the gorilla family Patience helped habituate in 2002.
They are called “Amahora”, meaning “peace”.
Habituation, Patience told us, “is a process of making them used to humans”.
“It takes a long time – between two and three years for them to accept humans,” he says.
“We did the habituation of this group after genocide and war. We had a dream of having peace.”
The mountain gorilla population is now growing after decades of instability and poaching.
The last recorded poaching incident in Rwanda was in 2002 and the 2018 census found their population had grown to 1,063.
But the peace here is not to be taken for granted.
Rwanda shares the volcanic Virunga Mountain range with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda.
Tensions are escalating as Rwanda stands accused of supporting the M23 rebels destabilising the DRC and threatening their conservation zone, the Virunga National Park.
As we cross through a gap in the stone wall, my adrenaline starts to pump. Will they accept us?
I ask Patience if we should be concerned and he doesn’t give a definitive answer – “just stay close”.
He teaches us the sounds to look out for: a two-tone groan indicates happiness and a coughing sound means we need to back up.
Another distinction is the famous gorilla chest beat.
Rwanda is accused of supporting the M23 rebels destabilising neighbouring DRC
When a silverback beats his chest it is aggressive and we may be told to crouch in submission, but when a child or female beats their chest, it is a sign of glee.
We link up with the rangers tracking the Amahora, who let us know they are nearby.
We are handed black face masks. Humans are a 98% genetic match with mountain gorillas so any infectious illness can be easily passed to them.
The rain stops as we push through the bushes. We hear the patter of a chest beat. My pulse races – do we crouch?
The bushes part and it is the sweet small shape of a young mountain gorilla.
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“She’s happy,” Patience confirms as she beats her chest again. We have been welcomed.
The guides slowly turn the corner and we hear the two-tone groan. They have found the boss. The alpha silverback of the Amahora family.
“This is the King of the Jungle, Mr Gahinga – or I should say his Majesty,” says Patience, visibly awed.
It took more than two years for the family to accept humans
Mr Gahinga definitely looks majestic as he sits on an elevated bush and strips eucalyptus leaves off their stems before bunching up the leaves and taking a huge bite.
He adds bamboo shoots to his mouthful before swallowing.
The groans of happiness keep coming and we can slowly step closer. Mountain gorillas eat around 10-15% of their body weight in vegetation over 12 hours each day.
As mealtime ends, the females of the family gather around.
Some roll around the tops of bushes and stretch their limbs after food. Others come carrying their young babies on their front, like human mothers.
As they approach, Mr Gahinga groans to let them know we are welcomed guests. The scar on his hand points to times guests were not welcome.
Mountain gorillas eat around 10-15% of their body weight in vegetation over 12 hours a day
He has had to physically fight off other silverbacks who have tried to run off with one of his six females.
As we leave, they sit and groom one another. Two females tend to Mr Gahinga and mothers pick leaves out of their babies’ hair.
Another female pats our cameraman, Garwen, on the back as he films his final shots.
Her touch is so human he thinks it is our producer Vauldi telling him to wrap up.
It is an experience of a lifetime.
A lesson in tenderness, warmth and welcome from one of our closest primates.
True to their name, they are blissfully peaceful, but their proximity to the best and worst of humankind means that peace has been precious.
An audacious Ukrainian drone attack against multiple airbases across Russia is a humiliating security breach for Vladimir Putin that will doubtless trigger a furious response.
Pro-Kremlin bloggers have described the drone assault – which Ukrainian security sources said hit more than 40 Russian warplanes – as “Russia’s Pearl Harbor” in reference to the Japanese attack against the US in 1941 that prompted Washington to enter the Second World War.
Ukraine war latest: Russia accuses Kyiv of ‘terrorist attack’
The Ukrainian operation – which used small drones smuggled into Russia, hidden in mobile sheds and launched off the back of trucks – also demonstrated how technology and imagination have transformed the battlefield, enabling Ukraine to seriously hurt its far more powerful opponent.
Moscow will have to retaliate, with speculation already appearing online about whether President Putin will again threaten the use of nuclear weapons.
“We hope that the response will be the same as the US response to the attack on their Pearl Harbor or even harsher,” military blogger Roman Alekhin wrote on his Telegram channel.
Codenamed ‘Spider’s Web’, the mission on Sunday was the culmination of one and a half years of planning, according to a security source.
In that time, Ukraine’s secret service smuggled first-person view (FPV) drones into Russia, sources with knowledge of the operation said.
Flat-pack, garden-office style sheds were also secretly transported into the country.
The drones were hidden in truck containers. Pic: SBU Security Service
The oblong sheds were then built and drones were hidden inside, before the containers were put on the back of trucks and driven to within range of their respective targets.
At a chosen time, doors on the roofs of the huts were opened remotely and the drones were flown out. Each was armed with a bomb that was flown into the airfields, with videos released by the security service that purportedly showed them blasting into Russian aircraft.
These drones were used to destroy Russian bomber aircraft. Pic: SBU Security Service
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Among the targets were Tu-95 and Tu-22 bomber aircraft that can launch cruise missiles, according to the Ukrainian side. An A-50 airborne early warning aircraft was also allegedly hit. This is a valuable platform that is used to command and control operations.
The use of such simple technology to destroy multi-million-pound aircraft will be watched with concern by governments around the world.
Suddenly, every single military base, airfield and warship will appear that little bit more vulnerable if any truck nearby could be loaded with killer drones.
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The most immediate focus, though, will be on how Mr Putin responds.
Previous attacks by Ukraine inside Russia have triggered retaliatory strikes and increasingly threatening rhetoric from the Kremlin.
But this latest operation is one of the biggest and most significant, and comes on the eve of a new round of peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv that are meant to take place in Turkey. It is not clear if that will still happen.
US President Donald Trump has been pushing for the two sides to make peace but Russia has only escalated its war.
Ukraine clearly felt it had nothing to lose but to also go on the attack.
Two people are dead and nearly 560 people were arrested after disorder broke out in France following Paris Saint-Germain’s victory in the Champions League final, the French interior ministry has said.
The ministry added 192 people were injured and there were 692 fires, including 264 involving vehicles.
A 17-year-old boy was stabbed to death in the city of Dax during a PSG street party after Saturday night’s final in Munich, the national police service said.
The second person killed was a man who was hit by a car while riding a scooter during PSG celebrations, the interior minister’s office said.
Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez has said the man was in his 20s and although the incident is still being investigated, it appears his death was linked to the disorder.
Meanwhile, French authorities have reported that a police officer is in a coma following the clashes.
A burning bike on the Champs Elysees during the disorder. Pic: Reuters
The officer had been hit by a firecracker that emerged from a crowd of supporters in Coutances in the Manche department of northwestern France, according to reports in the country.
Initial investigations reportedly suggest the incident was accidental and the police officer was not deliberately targeted.
The perpetrator has not been identified.
A man walks past teargas during incidents after the Champions League final soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan. Pic: AP
A burning bike on the Champs Elysees during the disorder. Pic: Reuters
The interior ministry earlier said 22 security forces workers were injured during the chaos – including 18 who were injured in Paris, along with seven firefighters.
In a news conference today, Mr Nuñez said only nine of the force’s officers had been injured in the French capital.
He added that fireworks were directed at police and firefighters were attacked while responding to car fires.
There were 559 arrests across the country during the disorder, including 491 in Paris. Of those detained across the country, 320 were taken into police custody – with 254 in the French capital.
Mr Nuñez said although most people wanted to celebrate PSG’s win, some only wanted to get involved in fights with police.
He also said the force is only at “half-time” in its response because the PSG team will be celebrating their Champions League victory on the Champs Élysées later today.
Police in Paris during the disorder. Pic: Reuters
Police in Paris during the disorder. Pic: Reuters
Mr Nuñez said that the police presence and military presence in Paris will be increased on the ground for the parade.
It comes after flares and fireworks were set off in the French capital after PSG beat Inter Milan 5-0 in Munich – the biggest ever victory in a Champions League final.
Around 5,400 police were deployed across Paris after the game, with officers using tear gas and pepper spray on the Champs Élysées.
Pic: AP
Pic: AP
At the top of the Champs Élysées, a water cannon was used to protect the Place de l’Etoile, near the landmark Arc de Triomphe.
Police said a large crowd not watching the match tried to push through a barrier to make contact with officers.
Some 131 arrests were made, including 30 who broke into a shoe shop on the Champs Élysées.
Police have said a total of four shops, including a car dealership and a barbers, were targeted during the disorder in Paris.
Two cars were set alight close to Parc des Princes, police said.
PSG forward Ousmane Dembélé appealed for calm in a post-match interview with Canal+, saying: “Let’s celebrate this but not tear everything up in Paris.”
Pics: AP
After the final played at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany, thousands of supporters also tried to rush the field.
Police lined up in front of the PSG end of the stadium at the final whistle, but struggled to contain the fans for several minutes when they came down from the stands following the trophy presentation.
Pics: AP
Désiré Doué, the 19-year-old who scored two goals and assisted one in the final, said after the game: “I don’t have words. But what I can say is, ‘Thank you Paris,’ we did it.”
Despite being a supporter of PSG’s rivals Olympique de Marseille, French President Emmanuel Macron also said on social media: “A glorious day for PSG!
“Bravo, we are all proud. Paris, the capital of Europe this evening.”
Mr Macron’s office said the president would receive the players at the Elysee Palace on Sunday.
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Three patients have been killed and dozens of other people were reportedly injured after a fire at a hospital in Germany.
The blaze broke out in a room in the geriatric ward of the Marienkrankenhaus early on Sunday.
It started on the ground floor and spread to the level above, with smoke affecting much of the four-storey building in the city of Hamburg.
Firefighters were alerted soon after midnight.
They said they found several patients calling for help from windows, and some people were rescued using ladders.
Pic: AP
Pic: Reuters
Three adults died and more than 30 were injured in the fire, the German news agency dpa said.
One of the injured is in a life-threatening condition, while 18 have serious injuries and 15 have minor injuries, the agency added.
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Part of the building had to be evacuated, though the wounded were mostly treated at the hospital.
Two injured people were taken to other nearby clinics.
The blaze was put out within about 20 minutes. The cause is not yet known.
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