Villagers shocked as hyena mauls boy to death, injures rescuers

Like a scene from a horror movie a village watched in disbelief last week as a 12-year-old was mauled to death by a rogue hyena.

The family from Leleshwa village, Ol Moran area of Laikipia tried to ward off the beast but it charged towards them making them retreat until it left a skeleton out of the lad.

In fact, the beast tore the boy’s parents who were daring to beat it with all the arsenals they laid their hands on leading to their admission at Nyahururu County Referral Hospital.

“Villagers answered to distress calls and would hit the animal but it kept charging at them with jaws dripping human blood,” said Edward Chege, “The people then retreated giving animal a chance to dig its jaws back in the boy who kept screaming.”

The boy’s aunt Anne Wambui, said the lad was preparing to report to school when the roaming beast entered their house and mauled him at about 5am.

“On hearing his child cry, his father who was at the time asleep woke up to defend him. The child’s mother who was in the kitchen preparing breakfast could also come to give help,” said Wambui.

Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) warden in charge of Laikipia West Mohammed Madela would later visit the family and console them.

Madela attributed the attack to a recent fire at the Laikipia Nature Conservancy for driving wild animals out of the conservancy into human settlement.

“The animals are now living in Lariak forest, a kilometre from the home of the victims,” he said.

He added that for the past week, he received numerous reports from residents of animals suspected to be from conservancy roaming in the villages after the fire incident.

Madela said officers had been deployed in the area to relocate the stray animals back to the parks.