Kenya: Women quizzed after ivory seized at airport

Two Chinese women were being questioned at Nairobi’s international airport after being found with 36 pieces of ivory, Kenya’s wildlife service said today.

The women were stopped at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport this morning, said Kentice Tikomo, a spokesman for the Kenyan Wildlife Service. They were booked on a flight to China, she said.

Kenya’s elephant population has grown from around 16,000 to 27,000 since the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species banned the ivory trade in 1989. But that is far fewer than the estimated 167,000 elephants which lived in Kenya in 1973, before poaching devastated the country’s herds.