An investigation has now been launched by the charity.
A recent report by Buzzfeed has claimed that the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is directly involved with the torture and killing, as part of their attempt to fight poaching.
The article alleges that people have been whipped, attacked with machetes, beaten unconscious with sticks, sexually assaulted, shot and murdered by WWF-supported anti-poaching units across Africa and Asia.
According to The Guardian, WWF have now launched an investigation into the allegations made in the report.
Here is an excerpt from the Buzzfeed article that goes into detail about what they discovered as part of a yearlong investigation.
“Down the road from the crocodile ponds inside Nepal’s renowned Chitwan National Park, in a small clearing shaded by sala trees, sits a jail. Hira Chaudhary went there one summer night with boiled green maize and chicken for her husband, Shikharam, a farmer who had been locked up for two days.
“Shikharam was in too much pain to swallow. He crawled toward Hira, his thin body covered in bruises, and told her through sobs that forest rangers were torturing him. “They beat him mercilessly and put saltwater in his nose and mouth,” Hira later told police.
“The rangers believed that Shikharam helped his son bury a rhinoceros horn in his backyard. They couldn’t find the horn, but they threw Shikharam in their jail anyway, court documents filed by the prosecution show.
“Nine days later, he was dead.”
You can read the Buzzfeed article in full here.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
