Between November 2021 and March 2022, my fellow journalist Olivier
Muhizi and I worked on an investigative story of ivory trafficking between
Tanzania and Rwanda.
About this story
By Kelly Rwamapera
I started journalism in 2014, writing
about all sectors but mostly education and agriculture since I was based
upcountry in Eastern Rwanda until 2017 when I started focusing on law
reporting.
It is in this context that the Henry
Nxumalo Foundation supported me and fellow journalist Olivier Muhizi who was a
photographer for the Associated Press in Rwanda to investigate ivory trafficking
between Tanzania and Rwanda.
The grant they announced in late 2021
aimed at supporting the investigation of cross-border wildlife crimes in East.
According to the Rwandan prosecution,
there have been more than 150 wildlife crimes in Rwanda as on December 2022
since 2018.
I had some reliable information about
Rwandans who had been convicted for ivory trafficking from Tanzania and it
seemed that we only had to meet these people and have the story unfold there
and then.
However, the actuality proved different
and the story required us to look somewhere we did not know after all that we
seemed to know had been exhausted.
I guess, if I didn't have the evidence
of the stories I had covered before on ivory trafficking cases, my friend
Muhizi would have suspected me of lying to him.
The reader should expect to meet
judges, prosecutors, police officers, local authorities, and Rwandans of
different walks of life including women picking beans in their homes.
I will talk about some minor mistakes I
made that became big reasons for not getting the information we wanted and how what
appears may not be what is in the criminal world of ivory trafficking.
In this story, I will also dive into
aspects of life in Rwanda and even history or journalism in general whenever I
find it relevant.
For example, if we’re to spend a night
at a certain place because of the information we were looking for, the story
can bring in the history of the place or the lifestyle related to trade or
other aspects relevant to the whole story.
You will also find quotes from some
songs and poems or other different writings whenever I find them relevant.
My name is Kelly Rwamapera a Freelance
journalist in Rwanda, a central African country that is also a member of the
East African Community block.
Between November 2021 and March 2022,
my fellow journalist Olivier Muhizi and I worked on an investigative story of
ivory trafficking between Tanzania and Rwanda.
We had received a grant from the Global Initiative Against TransnationalOrganized Crime,
the Henry Nxumalo Foundation and Oxpeckers InvestigativeEnvironmental Journalism to
investigate and tell a story of how ivory trafficking was being done from
Tanzania into Rwanda.
We knew where to begin but we didn’t
know that the ground would shift beneath us and find ourselves lost and without
where to begin.
This is the story behind the story we
submitted to the funders.
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