I’m only but shocked to read this and to find out how I am probably the last person to get this news, apparently several months later. Yet I feel obliged still to pay this tribute to Ymke Warren.
I never met Ymke in person but exchange emails with her a few times and she was just so warm and pleasant that I wished I would meet her and maybe get to work with her someday…..now I guess its too late. How very sad indeed.
Dearest Ym,
It seems inconceivable that two years have passed since you were taken away from us all, I look at your picture and it seems like yesterday you were shouldering your backpack and heading off to climb Africa’s highest peaks.
Some of us have applied ourselves to new jobs and new surroundings in order to find a path forwards in life. There continue to be challenges, but we take strength in your memory because that is all we have now.
Today of course we are reminded more than ever that we shall never leave each other behind.
xxx
Thought about you today, looked up yr tributes & tegan’s was second on the list. You were a calm, beautiful person, what a wonderful (but short) life you had, I doubt you would change a thing… Aaron was your soul mate, Mark was mine, we had an amazing moment in this world, taken from us. I was lucky to ever meet you. Tegan wants me to tell you, she loves you (forever) & Poppy wants to add that you were a lucky girl because you discovered gorillas that people thought were exstinct years ago, Poppy is like you, a bright button, I treasure them all & wish things cld hv bn different 4 us as, sleep & rest… you r with my father now, there are no better hands you could b with, dad…. I love & miss you every minute of every day, God bless you both xx
Dear Ymke,
A year has passed and I thought by now I would know what to write. I think of you very often, and when I do I also think of Aaron, your family, your work and your team in Cameroon. I didn’t know you so well, but can see by the tributes left here that you are treasured by many and missed so very much. There is no doubt that you will carry on in many people’s thoughts and in your work you undertook so passionately. So much good you have done in a short time. Rest.
You were my auntie and I liked you a lot, my mum has shown me your work so that I might remember you better. I was not allowed to your funeral which makes me sad. My mum tells me a lovely story about you being nervous for me at your parents, when the fire was roaring and you and my mum were nervous for Kye and myself. My mummy cried, I asked her about you, I am doing my best at school, I love animals, especially our dog Jessie. I want to speak to you again and do not understand why I am not allowed, from your niece, Tegan. I am being good at school for you.
Ym, how strange it is to be here in Rwanda without you. Every week I meet another person who’s life you touched when you were here working with the mountain gorillas…they all have so many positive memories and I feel like I am getting to know you again in another way…
I don’t know why we didn’t move to Rwanda together, Nyungwe has many primate treasures and as I discover and experience each of them I think of the joy and fascination every encounter would have sparked in you.
Thinking of you,
Aaron xx
Such a terrible loss for all who knew her, shared her enthusiasm, and admired her deep dedication and love for the gorillas of Cameroon. A senseless and sad event for so many. Ymke, you are in my thoughts and I will carry your memory in my heart always. Sallie Wald.
We were very sad to hear this news. We remember Ymke from our time in Rwanda with the mountain gorillas 1993-95 when she was just embarking on her postgraduate studies.
Ymke was one of the small group who were evacuated from the genocide with us in April 1994.
We admired her greatly for her dedication to her work and her concern for Africa and its primates. The only consolation that we have from the tragic news is that Ymke was doing what she loved.
Ymke
You are with the Adamsons and Diane Fossey who gave so much for the sake of our beautiful cousins, the creatures, championing them and their fragile habitats. You were a pioneer enabling us to grow towards them discovering they are not so different from us. People are precious too, but you also created that bridge for humans to deepen their understanding of themselves by reaching into the wild, a part of us we have lost. Thank you for your courage, for holding out your hand to the strange, the beautiful and the little understood.
What a waste of human life. Now that the perpetrators of this heinous crime have been arrested we hope and pray they would tell us the motive behind this senseless slaughter of a superb human being.
The sleepy town of Limbe has never seen anything like this. Our sympathy to the family and loved ones, while we pray that her soul RIP.