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[Josh Greenman <josh.greenman AT gmail.com>]

British gorilla expert murdered in Cameroon

A British gorilla expert, who escaped Rwanda during the genocide, has
been murdered at her home in Cameroon.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/cameroon/7864423/British-gorilla-expert-murdered-in-Cameroon.html

By Stephen Adams and Mike Pflanz in Nairobi
Published: 9:00PM BST 30 Jun 2010

Ymke Warren, 40, had her throat slit after she was bound and gagged
when she confronted an intruder at the home she shared with her
boyfriend Aaron Nicholas in the coastal town of Limbe.

Dr Warren had been living in Cameroon for four years with Mr Nicholas,
a fellow British primatologist and director of a gorilla project in
the west African country.

She was attacked at about 7.30am on Tuesday after he had left for
work, according to her British neighbour Dr Bethan Morgan, another ape
expert.

It is believed the attacker, thought to be Cameroonian, hid himself in
the couple's attic on Monday evening.

When Dr Warren confronted him, he lashed out with a machete according
to a domestic employee who witnessed the attack.

Mr Nicholas returned minutes later to find Dr Warren bleeding to
death. He and a friend wrapped her in a blanket and took her to
hospital, but she was too badly injured to survive.

Dr Morgan, who has spoken to Mr Nicholas and their maid, said Dr
Warren had been bound and gagged but had put up a fight before being
slashed across the throat.

She said: "We would all like to think that this is a robbery gone
wrong, but we don't know."

Dr Warren and Mr Nicholas, who have been together nine years, lived in
an upmarket area of Limbe known as the Botanical Gardens. Few
properties have fences or security measures but Dr Morgan said her
neighbours were "very careful" about security.

Mr Nicholas, 42, has been questioned by police. Dr Morgan said she
thought he had received inadequate support from the British High
Commission.

The couple were working on the Takamanda-Mone Landscape Project, run
by the American Wildlife Conservation Society. They were studying
Cross River gorillas, one of west Africa's most threatened primate
populations.

Jillian Miller, director of The Gorilla Organisation in London, said
Dr Warren was a highly experienced primatologist who had studied at
University College London and Roehampton University.

She said: "She escaped the genocide in Rwanda in the early 90s, and
then ran the Dian Fossey project."

Dian Fossey was an American zoologist who was murdered by unknown
attackers in Rwanda in 1985. She was immortalised in the film Gorillas
in the Mist, starring Sigourney Weaver.

Ms Miller said: "For Ymke to have survived all that and to have then
been senselessly murdered 15 years later is terrible."

A Foreign Office spokesman confirmed Dr Warren's death and said they
were providing consular assistance to next of kin.

"The Cameroonian police are investigating the events surrounding the
death," she added.