A herd of 40 elephants invaded residential areas and destroyed 27 hectares of various crops in the district of Marrupa, in Niassa province, in northern Mozambique, Raju Momade, director of the District Services of Economic Activities of Marrupa, told Radio Mozambique.

"Right now, the animals that are creating the most problems for us are the elephants. The area where [the conflict] occurs most is right in the corridor of the Marrupa administrative post," said the official.

According to him, the Niassa Reserve management has distributed 50 firecrackers to the communities to scare the animals away, in a district where 37 cases of human-wildlife conflict have been recorded since March.

Marrupa is part of the list of eight districts that are close to the Niassa Reserve, the largest protected area in Mozambique.

In late July, another herd of 50 elephants invaded a residential area in Machaze district, in the central province of Manica, destroying 15 precariously built houses and their barns.

Conflicts between humans and animals are frequent in several rural regions near conservation areas in 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).