Researchers from the UK and Kenyan based wildlife conservation organization, charity Care for the Wild International (CFTWI) have released their findings of a recent regional ivory trade study in the Sudan. According to a report filed by researcher Dr. Esmond Martin, elephants are being slaughtered for their tusks by the thousands by poachers in the illegal ivory trade.

The conservation group estimates that between 6,000 and 12,000 elephants are slaughtered each year to supply the continuing market demand for ivory. The group discovered ivory trinkets being sold openly in street markets in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. Dr. Martin has stated that the elephant slaughter is being conducted and supported by troops of the Sudanese government.

Martin went on to say that the city of Khartoum has evolved into one of the "largest ivory markets in the world". Ivory demand has doubled in the last decade and at least some of the raw ivory product is being exported to such places as Egypt, Asia and China where carvers transform ivory into anything from jewelry to cigarette boxes to chopsticks.

There is an estimated elephant population throughout the African continent of between 400,000 and 600,000 with only approximately 40,000 in the Sudan region. Elephant numbers dropped rapidly as a direct result of indiscriminate poaching between 1979 and 1989 but the international ban on ivory trading in 1990 allowed the population to recover in more southern regions of Africa.

If this latest slaughter is allowed to continue elephants will again be facing endangered status.

CORRECTION: Halifax Live originally attribute the research work to the organization Save the Elephants, which in fact has no connection with this investigation.