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The recent sentencing of three wildlife poachers has been hailed as a success in the anti-poaching efforts of the Greytown community. Farmers, SAPS and security companies working together to curb poaching in the Greytown area have welcomed the sentences handed down to three men aged between 27 and 42 years old, who were found guilty of illegal hunting by the Greytown Magistrate's Court. The three men were each sentenced to eight months' imprisonment or a R2 000 fine.

The FF Plus called for intensified efforts to curb poaching of wild animals in the Manyeleti Game Reserve, while the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency said the situation had been stabilised after a hectic December of dog poaching and snaring.

The prisoner, Wang Hui (47), escaped in the Brakwater area north of Windhoek, where he was part of a team of inmates doing work outside the prison, around 11h00 on Monday, the Namibian Correctional Service's head of directorate central staff, Michael Mulisa, says. Wang Hui is serving a 15-year prison term for attempting to smuggle 14 rhino horns and a leopard skin out of Namibia in March 2014.

About 20 rhinos have been poached at the Etosha National Park so far this year, with five carcasses discovered between June and August. This was announced in a statement yesterday by Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism spokesperson Romeo Muyunda. Muyunda said 12 black rhinos were poached on custodianship farms and 16 white rhinos were poached on private farms across the country. A total of 32 poached rhinos were black, while 16 were white.

Three people were arrested for alleged poaching inside the Hluhluwe iMfolozi Park in the northern KwaZulu-Natal. This was confirmed by the Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife on Sunday, which said the trio were arrested before they could kill a rhino. The first man was arrested on June 6 and two others were caught two days later. These arrest bring the number of alleged poachers caught inside the Hluhluwe iMfolozi Park this year to five. "The Park has been under siege since the beginning of 2022.

Mpumalanga's AB Steyn and Limpopo's Dawie Groenewald appeared in the Nelspruit Magistrate's Court on February 23 and 24. The pair's previous appearance was on December 10 last year when the case was postponed for the fourth time. Some issues were raised by each of their legal representatives yesterday including that the state was dragging its feet in the case, that the state should be held responsible for the teams' travel costs because of the delays, and that documents were not presented in the way they were supposed to be.

AB Steyn and Dawie Groenewald appeared in the Nelspruit Magistrate's Court again on September 17 after they had been arrested in Mbombela on July 20. The pair was arrested for the alleged possession of 19 rhino horns on July 20, and after appearing in court on July 23 for the first time, they were released on bail of R50 000 each. Following their appearance today (September 17) the case was again postponed to December 10 for further investigation.

The human rights organisation says citizens are unsafe in police custody. Human rights organisation NamRights says it is becoming increasingly alarmed by widespread allegations of torture and other cruel treatment of ordinary citizens by the Namibian police and other law-enforcement agencies. The executive director of NamRights, Phil Ya Nangoloh, says the organisation has reasonable cause to believe that there is evidence that citizens in general are no longer safe in police custody.

Suspected rhino and elephant poachers have gone missing in Etosha National Park after an alleged shootout with the anti-poaching unit of the Namibian police.

The head of the Namibian Police, Inspector-General Sebastian Ndeitunga, said he would dismiss with contempt any claim that the government does not have a real commitment to root out the poaching of Namibia’s wildlife. “Cabinet has allocated a lot of resources to combat and eradicate poaching. It is a costly exercise. This is an indication of how serious government is,” he stressed. Ndeitunga said it is clear that the poaching of rhinos and elephants in Namibian national parks is a well-orchestrated and well-funded transnational organised crime.

The Ministry of Environment and Tourism and the Namibian Police have requested evidence from Namibia Media Holdings (NMH) as well as the executive director of Namrights, Phil ya Nangoloh, to substantiate allegations of political leaders’ involvement in rhino and elephant poaching. At a joint press briefing on Wednesday, Minister Pohamba Shifeta and police chief Inspector-General Sebastian Ndeitunga requested ya Nangoloh to submit the said evidence before the end of December.

While there is no conclusive evidence of illegal poaching, members of the Tsiseb constituency in the Erongo Region say wildlife in the area is being decimated by unscrupulous elements.