Two Democratic Republic of Congo soldiers and a wildlife conservation guard have been shot dead in Garamba National Park while attempting to protect elephants from poachers, the park's management said Friday.

The three men died Thursday "when they were ambushed by a group of heavily-armed poachers, believed to be South Sudanese," the African Parks NGO said in a statement.

The victims, members of a reinforcement team which surveyed the Garamba park in the country's north east.

They arrived to support a ranger team on the ground who exchanged fire with the poachers, the statement said.

"The three men sustained multiple bullet wounds and died instantly," added African Parks which runs the national park along with the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature.

Garamba is home to 1,700 elephants, according to wildlife surveys, making it a target for armed ivory poachers.

With rangers patrolling 13,000 square kilometres (8,000 square miles) of grassland and forest, it is difficult to keep the giant mammals safe.

Sudanese raiders are suspected of killing the endangered elephants.

Last June, African Parks warned of a "poaching onslaught" in Garamba after 68 elephants were killed in just two months. Ten of them were slaughtered on a single day.

The Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), whose ranks are infamously swelled by abducted children, have also poached in Garamba.

Ugandan troops who are meant to be hunting fugitive LRA chief Joseph Kony down, as well as members of the South Sudanese and Congolese armies, are also believed to be involved in poaching.

In March experts at the Africa Elephant Summit held in Botswana warned that African elephants could be extinct in the wild "within our lifetime."

Elephant hunting is often organised by international criminal networks to supply the illegal ivory market, mainly in Asia, with some profits thought to fund regional conflicts and militants.

Garamba along with DR Congo's four other nature reserves feature on UNESCO's World Heritage in Danger list.

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