The Lulengo family carries a name that memorialises a human death as much as it describes an animal. The group was originally known as the Musekura family, but was renamed Lulengo in honour of the Virunga National Park technical director who was killed by a land mine in the Jomba area. The name Lulengo — which is also the name of the current dominant silverback — connects the family’s history to the ongoing human cost of protecting the park and its gorillas from decades of armed conflict in the region.
Habituation History and the Death of Rugabo
The Lulengo family’s habituation began in 1985, making it one of the earliest habituated groups in the DRC sector of Virunga. The original dominant silverback was Rugabo, who led the family through the first decade of research contact. In 1994, Rugabo and two adult females were shot and killed by poachers in the Jomba area. The killings left the group leaderless and reduced — the surviving members numbered twelve individuals at the time of Rugabo’s death. His son Lulengo, who would have been a young silverback or blackback at the time, stepped into leadership and gave the family the name it carries today.
The Silverback Lulengo
Silverback Lulengo has led the family since the 1994 poaching deaths — a tenure of over three decades that makes him one of the longest-serving dominant silverbacks in the documented Virunga population. The family ranges between the Bikenga and Jomba areas and can be trekked from Jomba and Bunagana, the DRC border town adjacent to the Uganda border crossing. The family’s ranging area in the Jomba zone overlaps historically with the Mapuwa and Rugendo families, and the social history of this cluster of Jomba-area groups involves documented interactions, female transfers, and the kind of long-term relationships between individuals that only sustained research monitoring reveals.
Family Composition
The Lulengo family is a small group — currently 15 individuals including silverback Lulengo, one blackback, adult females, sub-adults, juveniles, and infants. A newborn was recorded in the family in March 2026, continuing a run of successful births that reflects the family’s stability despite its small size. The IGCP records a history of members transferring out to neighbouring families including Mapuwa and Rugendo, which has kept the family’s numbers lower than some other Virunga groups. A juvenile named Mvuyekure was abducted by poachers at one point but was recovered and returned to the group — an outcome that reflects the ranger response capacity that Virunga maintains around its habituated families.
Trekking from Jomba
The Lulengo family is accessible from the Jomba trekking base, which sits near the DRC-Uganda border. This location makes it one of the more accessible families for visitors approaching from Uganda, particularly those organising a tri-country gorilla safari. Trek time depends on the family’s overnight position in the Bikenga-Jomba corridor. The terrain in this zone is dense Virunga montane forest at moderate altitude, less physically demanding than the high-altitude approaches to Karisimbi-side families but still requiring good physical preparation.
Current status: Always verify Virunga NP access before planning. The Jomba area is near the Uganda border and has been subject to the security conditions affecting North Kivu Province.