29 January 2024 , 08:19
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Prince Harry has been urged to quit African charity, African Parks, over allegations that "rape and abuse" have been carried out by their eco-guards.
According to new reports and a shocking new investigation, human rights campaigners have urged the Duke of Sussex to step down from the board of directors of African Parks, a conservation organisation he is associated with - and has been for many years - while it gets investigated. This comes amid allegations that its eco-guards "raped and beat indigenous people in the Congo basin".
Survival International, a London-based human rights organisation, has said that they wrote to Harry last May about concerns that people of Baka were being "violently abused by armed guards employed by the charity" when he was president of African Parks.
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African Parks is a non-governmental organization focused on conservation, established in 2000 and headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa (PA)According to The Guardian, the campaigners also sent Harry a video message from Eyaya, a man from Baka, who said: "The eco-guards are stopping us from going into the forest.
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"I’d like whoever is sending all these people here to hear what it’s like. I want the person who is in charge of the eco-guards and gives them their orders to hear this. Now there is only torture in the forest," he went on to claim in the video.
Harry is said to have responded to the letter and video within two weeks of hearing from the campaigners, with the Duke penning a letter back to them where he promised to raise the concerns to the people above him, one of those being the chief executive, Peter Fearnhead. Peter is a famous Zimbabwean conservationist who was a guest at Harry and Meghan's wedding in 2018.
But Harry's response has been branded as "very disappointing" by a campaigns director at Survival International. Fiore Longo has said: "He [Harry] said he took it seriously, but it didn’t achieve the change we had hoped to see. Then, very disappointingly, we learnt that Harry had joined the board of directors."
They are now urging Prince Harry, who was a president of the charity for six years, to step down from the board of directors after joining it last year. Longo added: "We hope that his stepping down from the board of directors will give a clear signal to this organisation that human rights abuses in the name of conservation are not tolerated anymore."
This comes amid an investigation published by the Mail, where it has been alleged that African Parks guards have abused the people of Baka. In the paper's investigation, one woman claims that she was raped by a guard three years ago, with her attacker dismissed after an internal investigation and jailed for two months.
A man also claims he was "tortured and beaten" when guards found him collecting honey for his family. But African Parks has said it has "zero tolerance" for abuse, with them "aware of the serious allegations".
In a statement, African Parks have said: "We are aware of the serious allegations regarding human rights abuses by eco-guards against local people living adjacent to Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the Republic of Congo, which have recently received media attention. We became aware of these allegations last year via a board member who received a letter from Survival International.
"We immediately launched an investigation through an external law firm based on the information we had available, while also urging Survival International to provide any and all facts they had. It’s unfortunate that they have chosen not to cooperate, despite repeated requests, and we continue to ask for their assistance."
African Parks is a non-governmental organization focused on conservation, established in 2000 and headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The Mirror has reached out to Prince Harry's representative for comment. They did not immediately respond.
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