No one anticipated that the trip from Kigali international airport to the Akagera National Park in the Eastern Province, would take more than six hours.

Video: The King of the jungle is back. Source: The New Times/YouTube

The heavy-duty crane trucks carrying crates that contained the newly imported lions and the entire convoy got stuck in the middle of the park because of muddy roads, as the lions were being taken to the boma that will be home for the animals for at least the next two weeks. The boma is surrounded by an electric fence.

The journey from the airport to the park which started mid-afternoon on Tuesday ended at about 9pm.

What seemed to be a no easy task was the offloading of the crates from the heavy-duty crane trucks down to another designated cage from where the crate would be opened for the lion to move out; this took close to 30 minutes for each crate.

Each of the seven crates contained one lion.

The release of the big cats into the boma followed an excruciating 36 hours from the time lions were collected from their respective parks in South Africa to the airport in Johannesburg to Kigali.

"This is the longest journey I have had to make while transporting an animal. It is a great job to Rwanda’s wildlife conservation,” said Kester Vickery from Conservation Solutions, the organisation that managed the transportation of the lions.

By and by, the lions are back on the Rwandan soil, and unlike the previous unfortunate fate they suffered of encroachers killing them one by one until they were decimated, this time round, their safety is guaranteed as judged by the excitement which was vividly seen on the faces of park rangers, officials and as well as the local people who stood by the roadside to witness the arrival of the lions.

Emmanuel Bagabo a resident of Nyagashanga in Nyagatare District which borders Akagera Park, told The New Times that seeing lions back in the Park was a landmark in conservation.

"Today is indeed a great day seeing lions being carried back to the national park…I will definitely go visit them in the park soon,’ said Mugabo.

The lions were donated by two separate parks in South Africa; AndBeyond Phida private game reserve and Tembe elephant reserve park.

Kester said that the capture and transportation of lions to Rwanda was a particularly difficult process due to the risk that involved the length of the journey.

"There were lions allover which made it very difficult to get them, in the first place. But anyway we managed to get them, tranquilised them before we loaded them in the crates and onto trucks,” he said.

In the trucks, they endured seven hours to Johannesburg "then about five to six hour delay before we could fly to Kigali. So it’s been a very long day,” Kester said.

Rwanda’s main brewery, BRALIRWA, contributed nearly $50,000 (approximately Rwf36m) for the transportation of the lions.

Jonathan Hall, the Managing Director of Bralirwa, told this paper that they started consulting African Conservation on the possibility of partnering in transporting the lions about two years ago.

"We wanted to be part of this historic activity; we donated a significant amount of money because we wanted to be part of the campaign to get the message out that lions are back in Akagera,” said Hall.

Speaking to the media at Kigali International Airport on Tuesday, Yamina Karitanyi, the Chief Tourism Officer at Rwanda Development Board (RDB), said that the arrival of lions is not only a milestone to Rwanda’s conservation but to the region’s tourism sector as a whole.

"We are so excited, the region should be excited too that the lions are back in Akagera, now that we are promoting tourism sector in the region as a single entity,” she said.

Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya last year launched the single tourist visa, meaning that a tourist who visits one country will not be charged more for the visa in case they want to visit any of the other two countries.

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