Dexter Chilunda, head of law enforcement at Liuwa Plain National Park in Zambia

Dexter Chilunda (African Parks photo)

Dexter Chilunda, head of law enforcement at Liuwa Plain National Park in Zambia, was on May 23, 2014 “on duty, making checks on the camps in the park, when he was shot dead by unknown people,”  believed to have been poachers,  Zambia Wildlife Authority spokesperson Readith Muliyunda told media.

Liuwa Plain National Park is managed by African Parks, a Johannesburg-based nonprofit organization that manages seven national parks in six nations.  African Parks founder Anthony Hall-Martin had died of cancer just two days earlier.  African Parks offered a reward of $10,000 U.S. for the arrest and conviction of Chulunda’s killers, who reportedly fired a shotgun point-blank into his chest.

“Chilunda was buried three days later in his home village of Samapeni,” reported Christopher Torchia of Associated Press, who received the details by e-mail from Simon Pitt, acting manager of Liuwa Plain National Park. “His body was transported nearly 300 kilometers, first by boat and then in a bus accompanied by other vehicles.”

Added Torchia, “More than 10,000 people live in the Liuwa Plain park, and authorities relied on tips from villagers to follow Chilunda’s suspected killers over two days. They were arrested after crossing the Zambezi River.”

(See also Anthony Hall-Martin,  68,  founder of African Parks, Foundation.)