Illegal ivory trade flourishes in Sudan's markets

By Shashank Bengali | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Wed, July 18, 2007

OMDURMAN, Sudan — Deep inside this riverside city’s sprawling market, down a tight corridor of stalls crammed with ebony masks, crocodile skins and other African kitsch, a young shopkeeper reaches into a grimy display case and pulls out something rarer.

It’s a two-foot-long elephant tusk, perfectly curved and solid as stone, buffed and polished nearly to white. The asking price is 800 Sudanese pounds, about $400.

The tusk is one of the best specimens of ivory on sale in the souk, but it’s far from the only one. Wildlife experts say that the markets around the Sudanese capital of Khartoum form one of the world’s largest centers of the trade in illegal ivory, which is flourishing despite an 18-year global ban.

The major buyers of ivory by far, say shopkeepers, are Chinese expatriates, hundreds of whom work in Sudan’s booming oil and construction sectors and frequent these markets for souvenirs. Besides figurines and vases, Sudanese craftsmen now whittle raw tusks into scores of creamy-white ivory chopsticks.

But that may just be the beginning. Investigators believe there’s a much bigger underground business involving the smuggling of tusks directly to China, where ivory is re-emerging as a status symbol among the rising middle class.

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