By Wanangwa Tembo

Kasungu, July 31, Mana: July 8 will go down in the history of one Lemekezani Phiri, 45, as a day he cheated death from two fronts right inside his home at Chiwoko Village in Senior Chief Chulu in Kasungu North West.

He narrates: “I was sleeping on a mat on the floor while my wife and a child were sleeping on the bed. At around 11pm, I heard a squeaking noise outside the house. I knew it was an elephant because I have encountered them before.

“This time it was right on the door of my house. Before I had done anything, I saw bricks falling where the wife and the kid were sleeping. I was lucky because the bricks did not fall on me but the wife and child were hurt.”

The elephant had pushed the walls making them crack and collapse narrowly missing him. After this narrow escape, Phiri now had to face the elephant – a huge towering beast making way into his house.

“I had kept some bags of maize in the house and that was its target.  We quickly took a few things and run away while calling for help. Rangers from the nearby Kasungu National Park arrived a few moments later,” he recalls.

When Phiri returned to his house in the company of rangers, he helplessly saw the beast holding up a bag of maize pouring the grain down its throat before being scared away by fireworks.

It was a long night for the family as another elephant came to the same house to finish off the remaining grain and a bag of flour. At least six elephants had visited the village on the night.

“I lost four bags of maize in total, my child was injured and I spent a lot of money on hospital bills and the house is as you can see,” Phiri says, pointing at the debris of his destroyed house.

Left with nowhere to live, Phiri sought refuge at his mother in-law’s place together with his three children while his property was deposited at the village chief’s house.

In another incident, a lactating elephant trampled to death a 32 year old mother of five, Masiye Phiri, as she went out to gather vegetables at a garden near the park boundary.

“Ms Phiri was gathering vegetables near the park boundary when a female elephant with a calf attacked her. The woman was carrying her two year old baby who survived the incident unhurt and was immediately rushed to the hospital for observation,” says International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) in a statement.

The baby’s grandmother, however, says the baby was lifted up and hit onto the ground and had its leg fractured in the process.

Communities in the area tell tales of horrific and routine attacks by elephants which take advantage of the absence of a perimeter fence along the densely populated eastern park boundary.

Group village headman (GVH) Nyambo says the problem of elephants is getting worse.

He says: “All along we have lived peacefully here until February this year when we started seeing elephants invading our homes although the situation was not bad.

“Somewhere around April, we saw the situation getting bad until now when we see the elephants coming every night. We are not safe at all and live in fear,”  

He says infrastructure supporting irrigation farming in schemes lie idle because the schemes have been abandoned as crops get damaged or eaten away.

“Kachere scheme, for instance, used to support 52 household farmers on 11.5 hectares of land. This time as you can see, the facility lies idle. We stopped everything we were doing here.

“This time we have nothing, except poverty. We are farmers; that is how we survive. Now we don’t know what to do,” says Nyambo, sounding frustrated. 

Concurring with Nyambo is GVH Chafwamba who points out that people in the area do not have food as the elephants ate their crops in the gardens and now break houses eating maize, flour and groundnuts.

He says: “My people here have no food. All the crops in the field were eaten. Those who managed to buy some maize are equally hungry now as elephants break houses and eat the maize or flour they find.

“We have abandoned our schemes now because anything we can plant is destroyed. Just last night, someone has had his house destroyed, maize eaten and is now destitute. Today it will be another person.”

Drying stems of bananas, broken houses and deserted gardens are a common sight in the area bearing testimony of the destructive conduct of the world’s largest land mammal.

The genesis of the mayhem is the absence of a perimeter fence in some stretches along the 130km eastern park border where communities have also invaded the buffer zone meant to hedge the park and keep gardens away from the sight and sniffing distance of animals.

Park authorities have so far managed to erect 67.2km of wire fence and say they will add another 20km with support from International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) by December this year to cover Chulu area, meaning at least 40km up to Chisinga near the Zambian border will still be without a fence.

Kasungu National Park Manager Ndaona Kumanga says materials for constructing the fence are being procured, assuring the communities that the area will be fortified at least by December.

“The challenge we have is that the fence is very expensive. It costs $10 000 [about K10.6 million] per km. However, we assure the communities that we will cover the entire stretch.

“Another challenge is that people cultivate too close to the park  and the buffer zone has long been destroyed. In that case, elephants can always smash the fence and destroy the crops,” Kumanga says.

According to park authorities, the taste of grass in the western park boundary is somewhat sour unlike the eastern side where the grass is said to be sweet hence the elephants are expanding their home range eastwards.

“So as they go east, they see crops which are grown very close to the park. In the absence of the wire, they easily go and destroy those crops.

“It is a big problem that requires the efforts of all stakeholders including our colleagues in the agriculture sector. We need to sit down and see which crops can be grown near the park boundary in the absence of a buffer zone,” Kumanga says.

District Commissioner for Kasungu, James Kanyangalazi, says the government is aware of the human-animal conflict and its impact at Chulu area adding there is an assessment report being done to know the exact extent of need.

He says: “We have received reports on the situation here and that is also why we went to visit and see for ourselves. There is an assurance that the fence will be erected this year covering an additional 20km.

“I plead with the communities to be cooperative and own this project so that we do not see the fence being vandalised. We hope after the fence is erected, their lives will get back to normalcy.”

Kanyangalazi thanked the people of Chulu for being peaceful despite the many challenges they are facing.

“I assure you that this is the last year you are encountering this problem. We are doing everything to protect this community. When the fence project commences, let’s support and own it,” he says.

Member of Parliament for the area Bauden Mtonga also assures the communities that the fence project will commence soon and that lives will get back to normality.

Established in 1970, Kasungu is country’s second largest national park siting on 2 316 square km and is home to about 400 elephants, 263 of which were translocated from Liwonde National Park. 

As the wait for the fence continues, lives, houses, crops and peace also continue to be lost, throwing the once prospering communities in socioeconomic disarray and a growing reality of deepening poverty and insecurity.