Human-animal conflict as hyena attacks a 69 year old widow in Dut village

By Lilian Omondi, Jackson Okworo, Timothy Obabo & Nicholas Otieno

Picture of Hyenas eating a carcass

A 69 years old barren widow from Dut Village in Kabonyo Sub-location of Ndhiwa District in HomaBay County was brutally attacked by a stray hungry hyena on Tuesday noon of 22^nd October 2013. The deadly cannibal is alleged to have sneaked from Ruma National Park through Sigama area down River Lwanda, a domestic water point accessed by over 2000 households along its banks. 

Surrounded by a number of angry armed villagers who had quickly responded to her desperate call, the helpless widow narrated her dreadful ordeal, “I had came to water my sheep from this point and as I sat on this rock watching them drink, I suddenly saw the heavily built hyena approaching me fiercely from the nearby thicket before I screamed and took to my heels for safety. That’s when the hyena opted to attack my four sheep”.

A number of the onlookers from the neighborhood pointed a blaming finger at the Kenya Wildlife Society that manages Ruma National Park for having failed to contain the cannibal that is already posing threat to the locals this not being its first or second attack in the month of October. 

The people present informed the area chief, Mrs. Grace Oyuga, who promised to handle the matter at hand with a lot of weight by mandating the authorities at Ruma National Park to ensure that the cannibal is trapped and taken back to the park before things get out of hand. The question that remains at large is, ‘who will compensate the widow for such damage?’