Rhino poaching in Botswana’s Okavango Delta has risen at an unprecedented rate with 23 white rhinoceros and eight black rhinoceros killed since October 2018, the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism said.

“Between April and October 2019, nine rhinos were killed. The unfortunate incidents have increased with 13 more rhinos having been poached from October to date,” the ministry said in a statement seen by Reuters late on Monday.

Despite heavy rhino poaching in neighboring South Africa, which has one of the world’s largest rhino populations, only six rhinos were killed for their horns in Botswana between 2007 and 2017 conversation organization Save the Rhino said on its website.

The actual size of the Botswana rhino population is kept a secret by government officials but the Department of Wildlife and National Parks Rhino Coordinator, Dr. Mmadi Reuben said in October that if the poaching ‘continued at this rate…