HARARE: At least 55 elephants have died in a month in Zimbabwe due to a lack of food and water, its wildlife agency said Monday, as the country faces one of the worst droughts in its history.
More than five million rural Zimbabweans — nearly a third of the population — are at risk of food shortages before the next harvest in 2020, the United Nations has warned.
The shortages have been caused by the combined effects of an economic downturn and a drought blamed on the El Nino weather cycle.
The impact is being felt at Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe’s largest game reserve.
“Since September, we have lost at least 55 elephants in Hwange National Park due to starvation and lack of water,” Zimbabwe National Parks spokesman Tinashe Farawo told AFP.
Farawo said the park was overpopulated and that food and water was scarce “due to drought.”
Africa’s elephant numbers have dropped from around 415,000 to 111,000 over the past decade, mainly due to poaching for ivory, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
But Zimbabwe, like other countries in the southern African region, is struggling with overpopulation.
“Hwange was meant for 15,000 elephants but at the moment we are talking of more than 50,000,” Farawo said.
“The situation is dire. We are desperately waiting for the rains.”
An adult elephant drinks 680 liters (180 gallons) of water per day on average and consumes 450 kilogrammes (990 pounds) of food.
Hungry elephants have been breaking out of Zimbabwe’s game reserves and raiding human settlements in search for food, posing a threat to surrounding communities.
Farawo said 200 people have died in “human-and-animal conflict” in the past five years, and “at least 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres) of crop have been destroyed by elephants.”
The authorities took action earlier this year by selling nearly 100 elephants to China and Dubai for $2.7 million.
Farawo said the money had been allocated to anti-poaching and conservation projects.
Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe have called for a global ban on elephant ivory trade to be relaxed in order to cull numbers and ease pressure on their territories.
Dozens of elephants die in Zimbabwe drought
Dozens of elephants die in Zimbabwe drought
- Africa’s elephant numbers have dropped from around 415,000 to 111,000 over the past decade, mainly due to poaching for ivory, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
Russia strikes power plant, kills four in Ukraine barrage
KHARKIV: Russia battered Ukraine with more than two dozen missiles and hundreds of drones early Tuesday, killing four people and pummelling another power plant, piling more pressure on Ukraine’s brittle energy system.
An AFP journalist in the eastern Kharkiv region, where four people were killed, saw firefighters battling a fire at a postal hub and rescue workers helping survivors by lamp light in freezing temperatures.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said “several hundred thousand” households near Kyiv were without power after the strikes, and again called on allies to bolster his country’s air defense systems.
“The world can respond to this Russian terror with new assistance packages for Ukraine,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media.
“Russia must come to learn that cold will not help it win the war,” he added.
Authorities in Kyiv and the surrounding region rolled out emergency power cuts in the hours after the attack, saying freezing temperatures were complicating their work.
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest energy provider, said Russian forces had struck one of its power plants, saying it was the eighth such attack since October.
The operator did not reveal which of its plants was struck, but said Russia had attacked its power plants over 220 times since Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Daily attacks
Moscow has pummelled Ukraine with daily drone and missile barrages in recent months, targeting energy infrastructure and cutting power and heating in the frigid height of winter.
The Ukrainian air force said that Tuesday’s bombardment included 25 missiles and 247 drones.
The Kharkiv governor gave the death toll and added that six people were wounded in the overnight hit outside the region’s main city, also called Kharkiv.
White helmeted emergency workers could be seen clambering through the still-smoking wreckage of a building occupied by postal company Nova Poshta, in a video posted by the regional prosecutor’s office.
Within Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov said a Russian long-range drone struck a medical facility for children, causing a fire. No casualties were reported.
The overnight strikes hit other regions as well, including southern city Odesa.
Residential buildings, a hospital and a kindergarten were damaged, with at least five people wounded in two waves of attacks, regional governor Sergiy Lysak said.
Russia’s use last week of a nuclear-capable Oreshnik ballistic missile on Ukraine sparked condemnation from Kyiv’s allies, including Washington, which called it a “dangerous and inexplicable escalation of this war.”
Moscow on Monday said the missile hit an aviation repair factory in the Lviv region and that it was fired in response to Ukraine’s attempt to strike one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residences — a claim Kyiv denies and that Washington has said it does not believe happened.
