Alyet Felix, convicted of illegally possessing a large stash of elephant ivory, has been sentenced to six years in prison. This is the latest in a series of convictions as Uganda ramps up efforts to shut down trafficking networks that move poached ivory through the country to markets in Asia.
Alyet was sentenced on Thursday by the Chief Magistrate of the Standards, Utilities and Wildlife Court at Makindye, Her Worship Kamasanyu Gladys, after pleading guilty to unlawfully possessing protected wildlife specimens. He was found with six pieces of elephant ivory weighing just over 90 kilograms, without a permit, which is an offense under Section 71(1)(b) of Uganda’s Wildlife Act.
According to the Uganda Wildlife Authority, the ivory was discovered on December 21, 2025, at a trading centre in Apac District, hidden inside a sack of groundnuts. Felix was arrested along with the contraband, though the Authority says others involved in the case remain at large.
Alyet’s case is one of several ivory-related arrests and convictions UWA has reported in recent months. In February, wildlife officers arrested a suspect and recovered 154 kilograms of raw ivory in Nwoya district, with UWA’s executive director warning that trafficking threatens elephant populations, undermines conservation gains, and fuels organized criminal networks operating across borders.
In March, police seized 106 kilograms of ivory and arrested five suspects in Bukedea district, in an operation authorities linked to efforts to close down smuggling routes running through key exit points such as Entebbe International Airport.
Uganda’s Wildlife Crime Unit, working with partners including the International Fund for Animal Welfare, has also reported disrupting several ivory and pangolin trafficking operations over the past year, including near Murchison Falls National Park and along the country’s northern border with South Sudan.
Research on the illegal wildlife trade has repeatedly identified Uganda as less of a poaching hotspot than as a transit corridor. A landmark 2018 TRAFFIC assessment found that terrestrial smuggling routes run between Uganda and its neighbours, Tanzania, Kenya, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, extending as far as the Central African Republic, with China and Vietnam as the main end destinations for smuggled wildlife products.
The same assessment noted that Uganda’s own elephant population has actually grown in recent years, and that ivory trafficking through the country poses a bigger concern than domestic poaching.
That assessment lines up with the magistrate’s own observation in sentencing Felix: that Uganda functions as both a source and an important transit route for illegal ivory destined for international markets. Academic research has gone further, with the CITES-linked Elephant Trade Information System naming Uganda one of ten countries worldwide most closely tied to major illegal ivory trade flows since 2012.
Much of the ivory moving through Uganda originates from poaching in the Democratic Republic of Congo and other Central African states, where elephant populations have been hit hardest. Investigators have also traced some seized ivory back to old government stockpiles, including tusks bearing markings from a 1989 Burundian ivory stockpile that resurfaced in shipments passing through Entebbe airport and Kampala.
Conservationists say the picture in Uganda’s own parks has genuinely improved. Elephant numbers in Murchison Falls Protected Area, the country’s largest, rose from roughly 200 in the mid-1990s to over 900 by 2010, recovering from the devastation of decades of civil conflict, including poaching linked to armed groups such as Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army. Wildlife officials credit sustained anti-poaching patrols, ranger deployments, and community engagement programs for the rebound.
Still, courts have not always backed enforcement efforts. In a widely criticized 2014 ruling, a Ugandan High Court judge ordered nearly three tonnes of seized ivory, representing an estimated 400 elephants, released to a trafficking suspect for export, a decision UWA, Uganda Revenue Authority, and police all appealed. Cases like Thursday’s sentencing of Felix are held up by wildlife authorities as evidence that the judiciary is now taking a firmer line.
In sentencing Felix, the magistrate stressed the need for deterrent penalties to protect endangered wildlife, particularly around Murchison Falls National Park. UWA, in turn, commended the judiciary for its commitment to combating wildlife crime and reaffirmed its pledge to work with law enforcement agencies and the public to safeguard the country’s wildlife heritage.