Youths Hurt in Fight Over Jumbo Meat

The East African Standard (Nairobi)
August 24, 2004
Thuo Gitu
Nairobi

Several youths were injured as they fought over elephant meat in Limuru, Kiambu on Sunday night.

Some received cuts on their hands while others squared it out over the juicy pieces of the pachyderm.

Four elephants and a calf that had earlier terrorised residents of Lari had inadvertently lost their way back to Aberdare Forest and found themselves in the congested Bibirioni village.

Policemen felled the four after an eight-hour hide and seek that saw several ramshackle homes felled by the six-tonne elephants.

At one time, the locals, majority of whom had never seen a live jumbo, watched in disbelief after one of them slipped into a pit latrine and cheered wildly as it struggled to extricate itself.

Youths armed with pangas, axes, knives and power saws trailed the beasts in anticipation of 'godsend manna' while urging the rangers to finish off the animals.

Chaos erupted soon after the rangers put the jumbos down leaving the locals to share the uninspected meat.

The jumbos have been crossing the area when migrating from the Aberdares to the southern Rift Valley.