In the wake of allegations that African Parks rangers raped, beaten, and tortured indigenous people, Prince Harry is facing calls for his resignation from the board of the organization.
African Parks guards allegedly abused the Baka people of the Republic of the Congo, according to an investigation published on Saturday by the Mail on Sunday, as PEOPLE reported.
According to the site, members of the indigenous population formerly known as pygmies who reside in Odzala-Kokoua National Park have accused the park's guards of violently preventing them from accessing the forests, where they have utilized their skills in hunting, fishing, and gathering medicinal plants for millennia.
Activists from the Baka community have alleged in a recent article in the Mail on Sunday that a man died from beatings and lack of medical treatment while incarcerated, and that a woman was raped by an armed guard while carrying her newborn child.
Among the other accusations are those of a man who was allegedly whipped with a belt while having his head lowered into water, a teenage kid who asserted that another guard had groomed him for prostitution, and medical personnel who were allegedly "subjected to intimidation to cover up abuse." The date of these alleged atrocities was not disclosed by The Mail on Sunday.
The 39-year-old prince started involved with African Parks in 2016 and the following year was named president of the nonprofit conservation organization responsible for managing national parks all throughout Africa.
He was promoted to the position of officially appointed member of the organization's governing Board of Directors in 2023, following six years of service as president.
African Parks oversees 22 protected areas and national parks in Angola, Benin, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Sudan, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, as stated on their website.
In order to rehabilitate and administer national parks for the long term, the conservation group collaborates with local people and governments.
According to the Times, in May 2023, while Prince Harry was president, a human rights organization called Survival International wrote to him to express their concerns about the abuse of the Baka people by armed guards from African Parks. Survival International is based in London and campaigns to protect and defend the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples.
The publication reported that the price was also sent a video message from a Baka man named Eyaya, who said, “The eco-guards are stopping us from going into the forest. I’d like whoever is sending all these people here to hear what it’s like.
"I want the person who is in charge of the eco-guards and gives them their orders to hear this. Now there is only torture in the forest.”
According to The Times, the Duke of Sussex “responded within a fortnight with an initially sympathetic letter, promising to escalate the concerns to the most senior ranks of the organization, including the chief executive, Peter Fearnhead.”
The paper said that the Zimbabwean conservationist attended Prince Harry's royal wedding to Meghan Markle in May 2018. When PEOPLE reached out to a representative of the Duke of Sussex, he declined to comment.
Survival International's campaigns director Fiore Longo expressed her disappointment at the addition of the Duke of Sussex to the board of directors and the lack of progress the group had received from that source in an article published on Sunday in The Times.
“He said he took it seriously, but it didn’t achieve the change we had hoped to see. Then, very disappointingly, we learnt that Harry had joined the board of directors,” said Longo.
The group Survival International has urged the royal family member to step down from his post, as they outlined in a statement shared on Saturday.
“We hope that his stepping down from the board of directors will give a clear signal to this organization that human rights abuses in the name of conservation are not tolerated any more,” the campaigns director said.
