The 50 elephants that invaded the district of Machaze, last week, destroyed 15 precariously built houses and their barns in the province of Manica, in central Mozambique, an official source told Lusa.

"Here in the countryside each house has a barn and in the invaded residences the elephants destroyed both. That is, 15 houses and 15 barns," Joana Guinda, administrator of the Machaze district, noting that the animals are still in the region, but far from the residential area.

Authorities alerted to the presence of the 50 elephants in Machaze on the 22nd, suspecting that they had escaped from a conservation area in Zimbabwe, Mozambique's neighbor.

"We have been doing local work to scare the elephants away and so far we have not had any other reports of destruction," the administrator stressed, adding that the herd has not made any casualties.

According to the official, the destroyed houses are made of adobe and straw, typical construction elements in rural areas.

Elephants and other animals invade communities in that district with some frequency, destroying cultivated areas.

According to the authorities, Machaze is on the list of districts with the most cases of conflict between man and fauna in Manica, central Mozambique.

According to the most recent official data, from 2020, a total of 97 Mozambicans have died and 66 have been injured in recorded attacks alone (others go unreported) by wild animals, mostly by crocodiles, according to the National Administration of Conservation Areas (ANAC).

In the same year 258 domestic animals, among cattle, sheep and goats, were devoured by lions, hyenas and crocodiles, and 248.81 hectares of various crops were destroyed. (Lusa)