A large group of chimpanzees in Uganda is fighting a rare ‘civil war’ after splitting into two groups. Many chimpanzees have been killed in this fighting that has been going on since 2018. The reason for this is believed to be the large size of the group and pressure on resources.
uganda The civil war between humans had stopped long ago, but now there has been news of another ‘civil war’. But this fight is not taking place between humans, but between chimpanzees, who are considered to be the closest relatives of humans. Yes, you heard it right. A large herd of wild chimpanzees in Uganda has now divided into two groups and have become mortal enemies of each other. Scientists doing research on this matter say that chimpanzees who were once friends with each other are now dying because of fighting.
This fight is very rare
Fighting usually occurs in small groups of chimpanzees, but often with other groups. Fighting between different groups (Pan troglodytes) for food, water or good habitat is common. But, it is considered extremely rare for a single herd to split into two parts and then fight among themselves.
Primatologist Jane Goodall says that something similar happened with a chimpanzee group in Gombe, Tanzania about 50 years ago. Even then a large herd was divided into two small groups. Gradually, one faction started attacking and killing members of the other faction. Within four years, male chimpanzees from the new group had killed six males and one female from the other group. However, scientists have very limited information about this phenomenon, so they believed that such incidents are negligible.
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Story of Kibale National Park
This ‘civil war’ between chimpanzees in Uganda’s Kibale National Park did not start today or tomorrow. Researchers have been studying the Ngogo chimpanzee community here since 1998. There were about 200 members in this community and scientists were keeping an eye on them for about 30 years. In the beginning all these chimpanzees lived together. But during the day they would temporarily split into small groups to search for food.
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Between 1998 and 2014, some small groups began to stay together for longer periods. By 2015, this large community permanently split into two distinct factions. After this, they started living and producing children as two separate groups. Gradually the size of both the groups started increasing. Even during this period, there was friendship between some members of both the groups. But by 2018, this rare friendship also ended. Both the groups became far away from each other and attacks started between them. These attacks were often fatal and led to the death of many chimpanzees. Researchers say that this fight lasted for a long time.
Chimpanzees are disappearing, children are being killed
Many male chimpanzees were killed in this mutual fight. At the same time, the number of chimpanzees disappearing without any reason also increased. Additionally, infanticide also increased. Aaron Sandel, who is associated with this study, says, “When we talk about humans, civil war has a special meaning. Chimpanzees do not have any country or any such system. Also, they all knew each other. So I am a little hesitant in calling it a civil war.” He also pointed out that the research paper covers data up to 2024, but there were more attacks and murders in 2025 and 2026 as well.
Researchers estimate that as the population of the group increased, problems began to arise in finding food and drink, perhaps this was the reason for the formation of these small groups and then leading to civil war. Anthropologist Aaron Sandel of the University of Texas at Austin and his colleagues have studied this ‘civil war’ among the Ngogo chimpanzee community in Kibale National Park, Uganda. His study has recently been published in ‘Science’ journal.