The Zinave National Park, located in southern Mozambique, received eight more rhinos as part of plans to rehabilitate the area, supported by the South African Peace Parks foundation, said official sources cited by Lusa.

"These are rare and endangered animals, so it is extremely important to strengthen security," Bernard van Lente, project manager of the Peace Parks foundation, explained to the media during the arrival of the animals.

In total, Zinave National Park has welcomed 27 rhinos in the past two months, after nearly 40 years without the animals in the area, under the initiative supported by Peace Parks, which has invested about $4.6 million to transport the animals and strengthen security in the protection area.

"We have trained 54 men who are now distributed throughout the park to reinforce security and we have requested a helicopter to reinforce the patrol, which is on site day and night," the source pointed out.

The organization, founded in 1997 by, among others, then South African president Nelson Mandela, advocates the reintroduction of rhinos to the Zinave as an important milestone in the region to protect the species, which has been in the sights of hunters.

According to the entity's data, in the last decade, more than 8,000 black and white rhinos (more than a third of the world's entire remaining population) have been slaughtered by poaching in southern Africa.

Mozambique's National Administration of Conservation Areas (ANAC) and Peace Parks partnered and began the park's restoration in 2016.

Source: Lusa