2018-01-24Staff Report 2 Loide Jason Otjorute-A herd of 28 elephants has destroyed 18 homesteads and fences, in the village of Otjorute in the Ruacana consituency. The elephants also destroyed the village borehole, in addition to the damage they caused in the area. The villagers say the elephants arrived in the area early one morning two weeks ago, amid much noise and chaos. Upon arriving at the area one could clearly see the destruction caused by elephants with trees damaged or uprooted. The elephants are believed to have strayed into the village from the Uukwaluudhi conservancy area. “The elephants entered from a nearby forest area. They have destroyed many houses and people are scared and helpless,” said Hilia Mayola, Otjorute senior traditional leader. She however indicated that no injuries have been reported and forest department officials promised that they are trying to capture the herd. “Attacks by elephants have been on the rise in that area but only during harvesting time. Now we are worried that they pitched up too early in big numbers,” said Mayola. However, villagers that narrated the situation to New Era said that there is one dangerous elephant that follows people‘s footprints until it gets into their houses. “We are scared because over the weekend one of the elephants followed one man from the forest to the location and it passed exactly where he walked. This is scary… the nature conservancy needs to treat this as a matter of urgency,” said one villager. The constituency councillor Andreas Shitama called on the nature conservancy officials to speed up the process of removing the elephants from the village before they cause more harm to people. “I am appealing to the officials to remove the elephants as soon as possible so that the society will be at peace. They are now living in fear which is not a good thing at all,” said the concerned councillor. The councillor also said that he has notified the relevant authorities regarding the situation and they have all promised to rescue the members of the affected community. 2018-01-24Staff Report 2
