Elephants On the Rampage in East of Sierra Leone

The Independent (Freetown)

August 12, 2004
Mohamed Mansaray
Freetown

Over 300 people have been displaced in ten villages and several others wounded in Gorama Mende chiefdom in Kenema District over the past few weeks.

According to Alice Sefoi, a newly elected district councilor in the chiefdom, wild elephants from the Gola Forest in the east of the country, have destroyed crops, houses and killed two people in Kpedema and Godama in the Kenema District, the eastern administrative headquarter of the country..

She said it has caused people to move from her own ward to another in the same chiefdom. Councillor Sefoi said she had gone to Kenema town in the Kenema District, to inform the authorities concerned to take immediate action, adding that the animals had been in the forest for years without disturbing anybody. She could not however tell The Independent what exactly caused the elephants to terrorize the area.

"I hope the government and NGOs will immediately come to our aid", she pleaded.

Wild animals terrorized farmers in the previous year destroying over hundred acres of crops .