In an unexpected attack on farmers harvesting their crop in a community in the Macomia region of northern Cabo Delgado province of Mozambique, elephants killed five people.
Two children and a lady are among the victims.
Others who survived the elephant attacks eventually came back to see their relatives’ crumpled bodies.
According to local sources, the victims are recent residents of the village who had previously been displaced.
Since 2017, a terrorist insurgency that has driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes has been centered in Cabo Delgado.
Although the Macomia neighborhood is close to the Quirimbas National Park, there haven’t been any elephant attacks in years, including during the time of the terrorist attacks.
“This is a situation of conflict between humans and wildlife,” police spokesman Mário Adolfo told Lusa news agency, adding that the victims were not in a protected area.
The main insurgent faction in Cabo Delgado is Ansar al-Sunna, a native extremist faction with tenuous international connections. From mid-2018, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has allegedly become active in northern Mozambique as well, and claimed its first attack against Mozambican security forces in June 2019.
In addition, bandits have exploited the rebellion to carry out raids. As of 2020, the insurgency intensified, as in the first half of 2020 there were nearly as many attacks carried out as in the whole of 2019.
They are known locally as al-Shabaab but they are not formally related to the better known Somali al-Shabaab. Although both pledge allegiance to the Middle Eastern Islamic State (ISIS) group.
Some of the militants are known to speak Portuguese, the official language of Mozambique, however others speak Kimwane, the local language, and Swahili, the lingua franca language spoken north of that area in the Great Lakes region.
Reports also state that members are allegedly mostly Mozambicans from Mocimboa da Praia, Palma, and Macomia districts, but also include foreign nationals from Tanzania and Somalia.