Iraq
Five hunters, including four Kuwaiti nationals, were arrested by Iraqi security forces in the southern deserts of Muthanna province on charges of illegal hunting. Photo: Iraq's interior ministry.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq's ministry of the interior announced Wednesday the arrest of a number of Kuwaitis and an Iraqi national for illegally hunting animals in the country's southern deserts.
"Through intensive security work and field monitoring, patrols from the Muthanna Customs Police Department, under the Border Forces Command, were able to arrest five hunters," the interior ministry said.
The statement added four of them were "Kuwaiti nationals holding tourist entry visas," and the fifth individual was "an Iraqi national who was accompanying them in the Adima area of the Muthanna deserts."
The arrests were made on the unlawful "practice of hunting within Iraqi territory."
"Five falcons and two vehicles bearing Kuwaiti license plates were also seized from them," the ministry detailed. "Legal measures have been taken against them."
Iraq has long struggled with illegal wildlife trafficking, driven by years of instability, weak enforcement, and high demand in regional black markets.
Falcons from Iraq’s southern plains and rare birds and foxes from the mountains of the Kurdistan Region are frequently targeted by traffickers. Rare animals are also regularly smuggled into Iraq to be sold at high prices.
Although Iraq signed the Convention on the Protection of Animals in 2014 - which aims to regulate the global trade in wildlife and animal products - illegal trafficking remains widespread across the country.
In late June, local authorities in Iraq's Diyala announced that nearly all of the 400 gazelles in an animal reserve in the province’s Mandali district had gone missing amid suspicions of theft or smuggling.
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