Wild elephants ransack houses, force farmers to flee in Aceh
Wild elephants ransack houses, force farmers to flee in Aceh
Ibnu Mat Noor, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh
Wild elephants once again came out of the jungle in West Aceh
regency and destroyed houses and land belonging to farmers, who
were forced to flee their villages.
The elephants have been terrorizing the villagers for the
last two weeks, and residents have asked the local government for
help in driving the elephants away.
Teuku Raja Nyakseh, a local community leader in Ranto Panyang,
Meureubo subdistrict, said the people forced from their homes had
sought refuge in neighboring villages.
A similar incident last December left a farmer dead when he
was trampled by several rampaging elephants.
Nyakseh asked the local security authorities to drive the
elephants back into the jungle, away from the villages.
"There are only three elephants at the most running amok
there, because the forest where they lived was destroyed," he
said.
Meureubo subdistrict head Jamin Gapi confirmed that a 50-year-
old farmer, Basyah Panyang, had been trampled to death by
elephants in Buloh village on Dec. 15 last year.
In October 2001, at least 25 wild elephants destroyed 14
houses and several plots of farm land at transmigration areas in
the villages of Bukit Linteung and Seureukey in Tanah Tambo Aye
subdistrict, East Java, according to Seureukey village head
Sutrisno.
Andi Basirul, the head of Aceh's natural resources
conservation office, said on Saturday he could do nothing about
the elephants that were destroying houses and farm land in West
Aceh.
"In this situation, all we can do is pray. It is impossible to
go to the location because of security concerns," he told The
Jakarta Post.
He said Aceh was home to about 400 elephants, including 28
tame elephants at training centers in Sareh, some 70 kilometers
east of Banda Aceh, and Basitang regency, North Sumatra.
The 28 tame elephants were trained in Lhok Asan village, Kuta
Makmur subdistrict, North Aceh, about 30 kilometers south of the
city of Lhokseumawe.
These 28 elephants had to be moved from Lhok Asan when
fighting between government troops and separatists from the Free
Aceh Movement intensified in 1999.
Andi said the conflict contributed to the suffering of the
tame elephants because their original training center was
destroyed during the fighting three years ago.
"That's why we evacuated the elephants to other places," he
added.
He said the wild elephants that were destroying farm land in
West Aceh were attracted by the food they found outside the
jungle, where much of their habitat had been destroyed.
"Because they are addicted to delicious food like rice and
cassava, the elephants like to leave the forest and search for
food in the fields near resettlement areas."
Unchecked logging in Gunung Leuser National Park forced at
least 13 elephants out of the jungles of North Sumatra, causing
chaos in nearby villages.
The elephants also attacked more than 10 tame elephants at the
park's animal training center in Sekundur, leaving one of the
tame animals dead.