Hyenas kill four in Somaliland villages

May 19 2006 at 04:15PM

Hargesia - Hyenas have killed four people and wounded three others in raids on villages in the Somali enclave of Somaliland.

So brazen are the predators that men sleeping with guns to protect their families in the Ainabo district, 300km from the Somaliland capital of Hargesia.

"One ofvictim was a small child who was sleeping on his mother's lap," Mohamed Nur Abdillahi, a village official, told Reuters by phone.

Attacks in the last few days have brought to 11 the number of people killed; 40 have been bitten in the past nine months.

Mohamed Omar added: "Hyenas live in great numbers in this district. Attacks on livestock are nothing new but attacks on people - mostly women and children - have been increasing in the past few years."



Residents of Eritrea which, like Somaliland, lies in the Horn of Africa, have reported a wave of hyena attacks near its capital, Asmara.

Locals have formed a committee to plot a strategy to defending the district. Armed men are now taking cattle, sheep and camels to graze, a task traditionally handled by women and children.

Omar said the committee would first determine the number of hyenas in the area. "We want to force them into the open and fight them in every possible way," he said.

Somaliland is a self-declared independent region of Somalia.

Even the hyenas don;t semm to like the Somalis.

Depends on what you mean by "like."

quote:

Originally posted by mrlexma:
Depends on what you mean by "like."

There's a W.C. Fields joke in there somewhere...

I think it was Will Rogers who said "I never met a man I didn't like" --- Slurp.