Sumatran elephants kill three people

Sumatran elephants kill three people

JAKARTA: Elephants in a forest in Riau province have killed three people in two days, an official of the province's natural conservation office said Friday.

"Two people were killed three days ago in a forest in Rokan Hulu district while another was killed yesterday in the same forest but at a different location," said Lukman of the Riau province nature conservation office.

He said that the jungle is believed to be home to a herd of about 30 elephants and that human activity has encroached on their habitat, prompting the violence.

"The victims were said to have entered the forest to seek wood early in the morning, when the elephants are usually still resting. They must have startled the elephants who then attacked them," Lukman said.

Wild elephants are still found in the jungles of the Sumatran provinces of Lampung, Aceh, North Sumatra, Bengkulu, South Sumatra and Riau.

Conservationists say the elephants's habitat were increasingly taken over by resettlement, plantation and industrial forest estates. -- AFP