Mozambique: Elephant herd destroys houses, barns in Machaze district – Lusa

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Mozambique: Elephant herd destroys houses, barns in Machaze district – Lusa

6:01 CAT | 01 Aug 2022

Machaze district [Image: Google Maps]

The 50 elephants that invaded Machaze district last week, destroyed 15 precariously built houses and their barns in Manica province, in central Mozambique, an official source told Lusa on Friday.

“Here in the countryside, each house has a barn, and the elephants destroyed both. In other words, 15 houses and 15 barns,” Joana Guinda, administrator of Machaze district, told Lusa, noting that the animals are still in the region, but far from the residential area.

The authorities warned about the presence of the 50 elephants in Machaze on 22 July, suspecting that they had escaped from a conservation area in Zimbabwe, Mozambique’s neighbour.

READ: Elephants, buffalo travel Zimbabwe’s length as population surges

“We have been doing local work to scare the elephants away and, for now, we have not had any other reports of destruction,” the administrator stressed, adding that the herd has not caused any victims.

She said the destroyed houses were made of adobe and straw, typical construction elements in rural Mozambique.

Elephants and other animals invade communities in that district frequently, destroying crop areas.

According to the authorities, Machaze is in the list of districts that most register cases of conflict between man and animals in Manica, central Mozambique.

According to the most recent official data, from 2020, a total of 97 Mozambicans were killed, and 66 were injured in recorded attacks alone (others are not reported) by wild animals, mostly by crocodiles, according to the National Administration of Conservation Areas (ANAC).

In the same year, 258 domestic animals, including cattle, sheep and goats, were eaten by lions, hyenas and crocodiles, and 248.81 hectares of various crops were destroyed.

Source: Lusa