My Story

Ikuru (Its Dangerous being a Chimpanzee)

I saw my mother die.

There was a war in the forests of the Democratic republic of Congo, that’s where we lived. Gunshots would go off at night and sometimes during day. My mother would always successfully carry me on her back to take me away from the cross fire.

But one day we got caught in the middle of the cross fire and my mother tried to move us away as fast as possible but unfortunately she got hit by a stray bullet.

I remember hearing her pant hoot, louder and louder followed by whimpering sounds and slowly by slowly her whimpers turned into silence.

I looked at her belly and there was a lot of blood. I then tried to touch her eyes and lips but she didn’t move them. I didn’t know where to go so I decided to cling onto her body as she bled to death.

A few hours later a UPDF soldier found us and tried to take me away from her but I couldn’t leave her behind. He tried pulling me away from her but I tightened my grip. I just couldn’t leave her behind until he decided to set her ablaze, that’s when I ran away for fear of burning to death.

This soldier later took me to Arua district in Uganda where he tried to get papers to raise me as a house pet fortunately I was taken away from him by the clearing officer who stated that I was an endangered species.

I was taken away from him and flown to UWEC on a chartered plane in May where I arrived with a bloated stomach, hair loss and majority of my baby teeth had fallen out.

I have grown up since then and had my name changed from jungle to Ikuru which means happy one.

If you want to see how happy I am lately, find me at Ngamba Island.

1000 panthoots

Ikuru