When rangers found two-month-old mountain gorilla Ndakasi ten years ago, she was clinging desperately to her dead mother, who had been killed by poachers.
Today, she’s a happy animal who loves playing with the other gorillas and rangers at Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
She is one of four great apes that live in the park’s orphanage for mountain gorillas, the only one in the world. The Senkwekwe Centre is named for a silverback that was killed in 2007, like Ndakasi’s mother.
“One of us is with them in their enclosure for the whole day. We play with them but we’re also watching over them,” says Andre Bauma, the centre’s director, who has been looking after Ndakasi since the night she was found.
When he enters the gorillas’ enclosure, which covers around 1.5 hectares, she is quick to find him, while the other apes also compete for his attention.
“The gorillas are my family,” says the 44-year-old proudly. Just like people, they have different characters, he says: one female gorilla is dominant, another quiet and a third selfish.
The four orphans have become a family and don’t actually need people any more to play with, according to Bauma.
The rangers are really there because the world beyond the electric wire-topped walls of the enclosure is extremely tempting for the gorillas. “Ndakasi is always trying to break out. She’s very inquisitive,” Bauma says.
The gorilla suddenly moves away from the others, picks up a stick and leans it against the wall in an attempt to climb up it, provoking a shout from the ranger.
“She’s very intelligent, but her intelligence is always concentrated on breaking rules,” he says with a laugh. 
Ndakasi has already succeeded in escaping several times, making her way to the park’s guesthouse, or to the park director’s office, overjoyed to be discovering new things.
“It’s very difficult to bring her back then,” says Bauma. “You need some patience. You have to give her presents and a few cuddles.”
The gorillas weigh between 50 and 65 kilograms. They’re also fast and can be dangerous. Forcing them to do anything is not an option. Instead, they have to be persuaded.
“After two or three hours you can get her back,” says Bauma. 
The four gorillas – Maisha, Ndeze, Matabishi and Ndakasi – can’t be released back into the wild because they have always lived in the enclosure. 
“Setting them free would be risking their lives. It could go wrong,” explains Bauma. “That’s why we want to improve their enclosure.”
There are plans, albeit vague ones, to extend the enclosure to ten hectares. It would have a wall that the gorillas couldn’t climb, which would mean they could sleep in the open at night too.
The south of Virunga, which is Africa’s oldest national park, is home to 200 mountain gorillas, about a quarter of the world’s population. The remaining three quarters are spread out in the highlands of neighbouring Uganda and Rwanda.
The great apes are one of Virunga’s most important income sources – tourists who aren’t deterred by the DRC’s violent image will pay 400 dollars for a day trip from Goma to see the gorillas in their natural habitat. In politically stable Rwanda, such trips cost twice as much.
The national park covers around 7,800 square kilometres and for the past two decades various militias have been fighting for control of the region and its metals and minerals, which include coltan, gold and diamonds.
In 2013 one rebel group, M23, overran the area, trapping the rangers and the gorillas. “That was a difficult time,” says Bauma.  
It helps that all the rangers are armed with submachine guns and also have access to bazookas and sandbags. “The gorillas probably wouldn’t have survived an evacuation,” says Bauma.  –DPA