DAR ES SALAAM, Feb. 9, (Xinhua/GNA) – A Tanzanian Member of Parliament (MP) told the National Assembly on Monday that stray elephants were causing devastation in parts of the country’s southern villages.
Vita Kawawa, the MP for Namtumbo Constituency in the country’s southern region of Ruvuma, said the elephants that went stray from the Julius Nyerere National Park and the Selous Game Reserve were destroying farm crops.
“People in villages located close to the game reserves are spending sleepless nights in fear of the wild animals,” Kawawa told the House in the national capital Dodoma.
In her response, Deputy Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Mary Masanja said the government has put in place measures aimed at controlling wild animals that went stray to human settlements.
Sophia Kizigo, the Namtumbo District Commissioner, told Xinhua in a telephone interview that in 2020 the stray elephants killed two people, injured four others, killed five cows, 18 goats and destroyed 550 hectares of different crops.
Tanzanian Prime Minister, Kassim Majaliwa last week said the government had started deploying game rangers to the areas which suffer from raids by wild animals.
Majaliwa said the increasing attacks by wild animals to the human settlements were due to a spike in wildlife population in national parks and game reserves following successful anti-poaching campaigns.
GNA