Translation of the newspaper article:
Residents of rural areas in the Malindi and Magarini sub-counties of Kilifi County are hungry after elephants invaded farms and destroyed food crops.
Over the past few months, elephants from Tsavo East National Park have been entering communal watering holes and farms, consuming the small harvests available and exposing residents to hunger and insecurity.
Shadrack Yaa, a farmer in the village of Shakahola in Chakama, expressed his disappointment on social media, saying he had spent sleepless nights guarding his crops.
"The misfortune of hunger stares Shakahola in the face. Elephants have invaded our farms and destroyed food supplies. For a month now, he has been hunting elephants every evening," the post read.
The animals have devoured most of the Adu and Chakama stations and cut down all the corn plants, banana trees, and coconut palms. According to residents, the animals destroy farms every day from 6 p.m. onwards and block the paths to shopping centers, posing a great danger to people.
Village elders claim they have engaged with local community representatives, members of parliament, and senior KWS rangers in both Tsavo and Malindi, but their efforts have been fruitless.
"We tried to pressure our leaders, we visited KWS offices and asked them to bring helicopters, but they only brought six KWS rangers to pick us up, who were completely unable to contain the situation," said Kombe Yaa, one of the village elders in Shakahola.
The representative of the Adu community, Stanley Kenga, acknowledged the damage caused by the animals and announced that unsuccessful efforts had been made to contain the situation.
During a telephone conversation, he said he had engaged various relevant government departments, but the KWS officers deployed to assist were too few to accommodate the elephants scattered throughout the constituency.
"As we speak, I had a meeting with the Director General of the Kenya Wildlife Service at Malindi Marine Park and promised myself before the end of the day that there will be a permanent solution," he said. "We have been engaging these people for a long time, they have not been able to solve this problem, so I cannot promise when this will be resolved."
The elders criticized the government's lack of response and said their region had been neglected.
"We have seen places like Amboseli and Masai Mara that have driven elephants out of residential areas, but we have not seen these efforts here. We are suffering," said Samson Zia, an elder in Shakahola.
Residents have asked the government to take immediate action to remedy the situation and prevent potential conflicts between animals and humans that could lead to the animals being killed.
By Harrison Yeri and Jackson Msanzu
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