Just 5,000 have survived. An elephant holocaust within the human holocaust.

In early 1980s South Sudan recorded more than 130,000 elephants but the liberation struggle that lasted for about three decades wiped out almost all of them. Presently in the entire country, apparently just about 3.9 percent of elephants have survived, which constitutes just about 5,000 of 130,000.
The South Sudan Wildlife Conservation Society attributes high demands for elephant tusk in the Asia among the factors that fueled the massive killing of elephants.

Elephants (and other wildlife) did not have protection and became vulnerable to merciless poachers during the long civil wars in the then region of Southern Sudan, until the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005, which gave birth to the independence of South Sudan.

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Photo credits: Gurtong