Wed, 21 Jun 2017 09:55:45 +0000
BY BENNIE MUNDANDO
HIPPOS on Lake Kariba in Sinazongwe district have gone on rampage, attacking and killing people as the Department of National Parks and Wildlife in the area has been accused of not doing enough to arrest the situation.
Mweezya ward councillor Kennedy Sikauba told the Daily Nation yesterday that 17 people had so far been attacked this month alone, two of them fatally.
Mr. Sikauba said the livelihoods of most of the people around the lake depended on farming and fishing but observed that most of them were now living in fear as the beasts were on rampage and were attacking anyone who patronised the lake.
He said the development needed urgent attention failure to which more lives would be lost as the human-animal conflict was rising due to the increase in the number of hippos and crocodiles in the area.
He said other than fishing, water transport was the only means through which people living on islands crossed over to access services not obtaining on the other side such as health and education and that the state of affairs was now worrying as people feared for their lives due to persistent attacks from hippos.
“Within this month, we have had a total of 17 separate attacks and we have lost two lives. Others have survived with serious injuries as hippos are attacking people even during day time and this has become a challenge because water transport is the only means for some people in certain places to get to health centres.
“This human-animal conflict has been exacerbated by the increase in the number of hippos and crocodiles in the lake and urgent measures need to be put in place to protect human life,” Mr. Sikauba said.
He accused the Department of National Parks and Wildlife of not doing enough to arrest the situation despite constant reminders of what was obtaining in the area.
“We have engaged with them on a number of occasions but they have been reluctant to act. After the latest victim, we again went to complain to them that the situation was getting out of hand and they came here and proved for themselves that there were a lot of hippos.
“The only thing they did was to shoot in the air to scare them, saying they were not allowed to kill any of them. These hippos only disappeared for a day but resurfaced later and our worry is that they may now become more aggressive because of the shooting,” he said.
