The Nkuringo gorilla family is arguably the only mountain gorilla group under the leadership of a blackback (Rwamutwe) after the last silverback in the family (Rafiki) was killed by poachers.
The Nkuringo gorilla family was originally led by the founding silverback named Nkuringo who gave leadership to this family until 2012. Nkuringo died at 45 years, leaving behind 03 silverbacks; Safari, Rafiki, and Christmas.
After the death of Nkuringo, Safari then assumed power and led the family in close partnership with his two sibling silverbacks; Rafiki and Christmas. However, safari mysteriously went missing to date after a hot heated fight with a wild gorilla group called Bushaho. The whereabouts of Safari still remain unknown.
Rafiki then took up the position of leading the Nkuringo group and did a good job keeping the family together (except for his brother Christmas who opted out and decided to start his own family currently called the Christmas gorilla family. Unfortunately, Rafiki was killed by a poacher on June,1/2020. The poacher was apprehended and is currently serving a term for this offense. The death of the last Silverback Rafiki did leave a leadership gap in the Nkuringo gorilla family, the family was only left with young in-experienced blackbacks; Rwamutwe & Tabu.
The Nkuringo group is now currently led by a blackback called Rwamutwe in close cooperation with Tabu. These two are working hard to keep the family together but unfortunately don’t have as much experience to do the job well which did result in one of the adult females leaving the Nkuringo group to join her sons’ group called Christmas.
The Nkuringo Gorilla group was led by Safari who unfortunately went missing (his whereabouts are still unknown) after a big fight with the then wild Bushaho gorilla group leaving Rafiki as the new leader of the Nkuringo gorilla family. Rafiki, unfortunately, lost his precious life to poaching on June/ 1 /2020.
