Police in Arusha engaged in a six-hour gun battle on July 21 with suspected bandits believed to be behind the killing of a policeman at a bank robbery incident in Mwanga, Kilimanjaro earlier in the month. The gun battle started when police detectives working on a tip off stormed into a villa at around 5:00 am and had to open fire to try and force the bandits to surrender. However the bandits fired back and hundreds of local residents rushed to the scene to witness the battle. The bandits, who wore bullet-proof jackets surrendered six hours later. They begged for mercy and were arrested – Guardian.

Police in Dar es Salaam are holding a person found in possession of 223 elephant tusks apparently harvested from 112 elephants killed by poachers. They were being specially packed for export. In June last year two consignments worth $3,100,778, were traced as having originated from the Dar es Salaam port. They were packed in 18 boxes, loaded in a container and shipped to Korea.

The development came as MP’s, assembled in Dodoma for the National Assembly’s budget meeting, protested over reports of gross violation of hunting laws by both Tanzanians and foreigners and called for immediate intervention by the government to arrest the situation. Opposition MP’s decried what they called palpable lack of transparency and seriousness in the allocation of hunting blocks to local and foreign dealers.

Some MP’s said that the government had endlessly embraced foreign investors in the management of the tourism sector, ignoring local players “who contribute greatly to the sector’s development”.