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Sukulwenkosi Dube Plumtree Correspondent
AT least 20 elephants have invaded a village in Mangwe district which is located about 10 kilometres from Plumtree. Some of the jumbos are suspected to be coming from Botswana. The elephants which were last seen on Wednesday in Izimnyama small scale farming area have been invading people’s homesteads during the day.

In an interview after a visit to some of the affected areas, Mangwe District Chief Executive Officer Nketha Mangoye Dlamini said the elephants pose great danger to villagers as they are invading homesteads.

“The other problem is that the elephants are now destroying structures of villagers and we hope that they will not get violent,” he said.
Dlamini said the animals are suspected to be coming from Mabhongwane Game Park in Bulilima District as it was not properly fenced.

He said Makororo and Maninji areas were also affected by elephants coming from Botswana.
A villager from the affected area, Alois Nkomo, said two herds of elephants invaded his homestead on Wednesday morning.

“The elephants were first seen in our area on August 19. They were seen roaming around the bushes without getting close to homesteads.
“The situation became worse recently because they charged towards my homestead on Wednesday around 6AM. We quickly took empty drums and started beating them to stop the elephants from coming close to the huts,’’ said Nkomo.

“We had to stand guard for about four hours beating empty drums because the elephants kept returning. Some of the elephants damaged a fence surrounding my kraal while others destroyed more than three kilometres of the fence that borders my farm.

“I counted a herd of 17 elephants and later a separate one of five elephants,’’ he said.
Nkomo said it was unusual for elephants to be seen close to homesteads during the day and added that the latest development was a sign of impending danger.

“I have never seen such large elephants before and I have never experienced such a direct confrontation with them. The encounter was frightening as the elephants had surrounded my homestead. In the past the elephants would just pass through our area during the night leaving tracks for us to see that they had passed by,” said Nkomo.

He said the elephants had invaded four plots in their area.
Nkomo said the greatest concern they had was that the elephants were damaging people’s property and that they were drinking up huge amounts of water from dams which people and animals rely on.