AN AMERICAN TOURIST AND HER TEENAGE DAUGHTER ARE TRAMPLED TO DEATH BY A ROGUE ELEPHANT AS THEY STROLLED AROUND WITH OTHERS IN MT. KENYA FOREST.
Writes Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City
AN American tourist and her teenage daughter were on Tuesday this week trampled to death by a rogue elephant inside the Mount Kenya forest.
The tourist, only identified by police as Ms S. Brown 39, and her daughter, died on the spot when the beast attacked them as they strolled in the forest in the company of others.
Four other tourists, including Ms Brown’s husband, Mr Henry Brown, escaped unhurt and ran to safety during the mid-morning savage attack by the animal.
Mr Brown is reported to be a teacher at the International School in Kenya, based in Nairobi, while his family is living in the US and are said to have come to the country on a Christmas vacation.
The tourists were reportedly attacked from behind as they strolled in the company of a tourist guide employed by the Castle Lodge, where the group were staying.
Te group was on holiday, and were booked as guests at the Castle Lodge, in Kimunya area, of Kirinyaga district, a popular tourists resort located close to the slopes of Mt Kenya.
The owner of the lodge, Ms Melin Van Laar, described it as an ugly accident, saying the victims were among the several guests at the Lodge at the time of the incident.
“This is just an accident like any other. The elephant made a surprise attack from behind the tourist as they walked around on a sight seeing, and attacked the victims.”
Ms Laar said it was a tragedy for the teacher to lose both his wife and daughter while on a visit to the Lodge.
Following the attack, she said, the management of the hotel immediately contacted the Kenya Wildlife Services forest rangers, who rushed to the scene. They found the badly mutilated bodies of the two lying a few meters from each other. The rangers collected the bodies, which were immediately flown to Nairobi for preservation at a funeral home. The two bodies will later be flown back home in the US for burial.
Following the savage attack on the two visitors by the rogue elephant, Ms Laar said the hotel management was planning to boost security around the Lodge to avoid similar incidents in the future. It will be consulting the KWS to explore the possibilities of providing the tourist guides with guns, or to see how the tourists could be accompanied by armed KWS forest rangers while visiting the forest.
A hotel worker, Mr Anthony Njeru, narrated to the press how those who escaped unhurt returned to the hotel, minus the two, and broke the sad news to the management.
Elephant usually don’t attack people, but in the event where there is a solitary bull who is evicted by another bull in scrambling for territorial and family control, the docile animal can became dangerous. An elephant is one of the most intelligence wild animal after the leopard.
Close to ten people have been killed by elephants in Kenya in separate incident in the whole of the year 2009, but the country also lost many herds of elephants as the result of the recent prolonged drought and lack of green pasture.
Ends
leooderaomolo@yahoo.com