Five elephants were killed last week by poachers using cyanide in Matabeleland North, Forestry Commission information and communications manager Ms Violet Makoto has said. 
 
 In a statement, Ms Makoto said Forestry Commission guards who were on patrol discovered the cyanide which was planted on salt licks. 
 
 "A total of five elephants have been killed this week. 
 
 "Forest Protection Unit guards who were patrolling the Amandundumela area of Gwaai Forest on Wednesday afternoon discovered cyanide planted on salt licks around Simunyu water point. 
 
 There is no water pumping taking place at this water-pan but game animals like licking the soils around it," she said. 
 
 She said Forestry Commission protection personnel and the Zimbabwe Republic Police were alerted and started searches. 
 
 "More Forestry Commission protection personnel together with ZRP officers were alerted to this incident and upon tracking the spoor, five elephant carcasses were discovered with the tusks already removed. 
 
 Ms Makoto said a duiker was also found dead on Thursday. 
 
 "On Thursday, the search team came across a place where a duiker was killed and skinned and it is presumed to have been killed for food by the poachers. 
 
 "It appears the poachers are doing their business on foot as the spoor is heading towards Block O of Gwaai Forest," she said. 
 
 She said the Forestry Commission was working hard to find the suspected poachers. 
 
 "The Forestry Commission team is still hard at work to bring the culprits to book," she said. 
 
 "We are suspecting a team of about five poachers. We came across a camp sometime ago, which looked like it accommodated about five people and we think it is the same team," she said. 
 
 Zimbabwe has so far lost nearly 400 elephants in the last two years. 
 
 Cyanide is a highly poisonous chemical, used in processing gold. 
 
 It kills in the most painful, yet silent fashion, a method that helps poachers to avoid the attention of game rangers, whose mandate is to guard the animals from danger. ||||| HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwean officials say poachers killed five elephants by poisoning them with cyanide. 
 
 Violet Makoto, spokeswoman for Zimbabwe's forestry commission, said Monday that rangers discovered the carcasses of the elephants with their tusks removed in a western forest last week. No arrests have been made. 
 
 Makoto said the poison was laced on salt licks, a method now regularly used by poachers to kill elephants in Zimbabwe. 
 
 She says poachers killed four other elephants in the same area in February. 
 
 The wildlife-rich southern African country has battled cyanide poisoning of wildlife by poachers for the past three years. Poachers killed 62 elephants by that method in October. ||||| Harare - Five elephants have been poisoned with cyanide in a protected forest area in western Zimbabwe, the first reports of poisonings in months, according to reports on Saturday. 
 
 The dead elephants were found by a patrol tracking poachers in the Amandundumela area of the Gwaai Forest. 
 
 "Forest protection personnel together with ZRP [police] officers were alerted to this incident and upon tracking the spoor, three elephant carcasses were discovered with the ivory already removed," Forestry Commission spokesperson Violet Makoto told the state-run Chronicle. 
 
 "The team also discovered two more elephant carcasses [on Friday]," she added. 
 
 Cyanide widely available on black market 
 
 In 2013 Zimbabwe experienced its first major cyanide poisoning incidents. More than 200 elephants were killed in and around Hwange National Park. 
 
 Last October, more than 60 elephants were reported killed in another spate of cyanide poisonings in Hwange and Kariba, in the north of the country. 
 
 Makoto told the Chronicle that four elephants were killed in February in the Gwaai Forest. In March forestry guards seized 5kgs of cyanide from three suspected poachers who managed to escape, she said. 
 
 Cyanide, used in gold mining, is reported to be widely available on Zimbabwe's black market. 
 
 Authorities say that some areas, including Hwange and Gonarezhou National Park in the south-east of the country have too many elephants. 
 
 But in other areas, including the Zambezi Valley in northern Zimbabwe, elephants have been hard-hit by poachers. 
 

– Zimbabwean officials say poachers killed five elephants by poisoning them with cyanide, the AP reports. Violet Makoto, spokeswoman for Zimbabwe's forestry commission, said Monday that rangers discovered the carcasses of the elephants with their tusks removed in a western forest last week. Makoto says the poison was laced on salt licks, a method now regularly used by poachers to kill elephants in Zimbabwe. She says poachers killed four other elephants in the same area in February. No arrests have been made, but Makoto tells AllAfrica.com that "we are suspecting a team of about five poachers. We came across a camp sometime ago, which looked like it accommodated about five people and we think it is the same team." The wildlife-rich southern African country has battled cyanide poisoning of wildlife by poachers for the past three years. Poachers killed 62 elephants by that method in October. Cyanide kills painfully but quietly, enabling poachers to work without attracting game rangers. Used in gold mining, cyanide is said to be readily available on the black market in Zimbabwe, News 24 reports.