The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has unveiled its annual Christmas ad campaign that has been labelled as “one of the saddest Christmas adverts ever produced.

The global campaign aims to daw attention to the devastation caused by Africa’s ivory trade and the tremendous cruelty inflicted on its elephants.

It was produced by the WWF’s as part of their Just Like Us campaign and shows an elephant crying as it sees one of its herd gunned down by poachers for its tusks.

UK’s The Metro described the ad as “one of the saddest Christmas adverts ever produced” while The Independent labelled it as “heartbreaking”.

Posters to WWF’s Facebook page called the ad “gut wrenching” and”awful” while another wrote, “I don’t know whether to be angry or sad”. Check out the ad below:

Commenting on the campaign, Tanya Steele, WWF chief executive, said: “Like all of us, elephants vary in many characteristics, emotions and personalities.

“The impact of poaching not only threatens the future of elephants, but it is strongly felt among them and leaves a lasting impression. Time and time again we see elephants grieve for those tragically killed.”