Riana residents in Suneka Sub County, Kisii County are calling for help from the county government, as monkeys have in the past one month destroyed food crops worth thousands of shillings.
According to area residents, fear has engulfed the village and its environs as the destructive wild-beasts continue to raid homes for food and threaten the lives of children.
Johnson Obiri a farmer, who claimed to have lost over three acres of maize and sweet potatoes to the animals, said the monkeys even sneak into leaving rooms.
Apart from the severe destruction they cause to farms, they are now a threat to the lives of young children who move to schools every single day, or those who go fetching firewood in the evenings.
The local people have warned the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) management that they would mobilize in the next one week with a view to killing all the monkeys in the area, if it fails to restrain the animals from causing mayhem.
“We are not going to sit back and watch these animals destroy our food crops and threaten our lives. KWS officials need to intervene immediately and confine their animals in areas where they do not cause conflict with human beings,” said Dorcas Otwori, an area resident.
However, the claims were immediately dismissed as baseless by the region’s KWS officer in-charge Peter Nduati, who also promised to address the current human-wildlife conflict the area.