A Conservation Ranger working with the Tanzania National Parks has been trampled to death by a marauding elephant in one of the villages striding the Serengeti.
The 27 year-old, Arafat Saidi Miyimba who used to serve at the Serengeti National Park, was killed at the Mrito Village of Tarime District, in Mara Region after being attacked by the irate Jumbo.
Miyimba, was a Conservation Ranger Grade Three (CR III) and happened to meet his fate while working alongside a team of seven other park wardens.
The Serengeti Rangers were executing their regular patrol duties and found themselves pitted in the deadly conflict between villagers and elephants that had stomped into their farms.
Now, the horrid incident occurred when the Rangers from Serengeti spread into the villages surrounding the National Park in their attempt to drive back a herd of jumbos that had meandered across the conservancy border into residential areas.
Official reports from the Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA) headquarters in Arusha, are to the effect that the elephants had roamed away from the Serengeti into the nearby Mrito Village.
As it happens, the villagers saw the Jumbos and tried to scare them away by shouting and waving at the pack of the giant mammals whose number could not be ascertained immediately.
The bedlam raised by the local residents in their attempt to chase the jumbos away from their residential areas apparently irked the elephants and one of the animals turned in fury and started charging at the rangers.
Catherine Mbena is the Senior Conservation Officer, in charge of communications at the Tanzania National Parks who relayed in a statement that while the TANAPA rangers were fleeing from the angry elephants, one of the wardens, Arafat Saidi tripped and fell onto the ground.
The elephant which was leading the pack of Jumbos then caught up with him and started trampling the helpless ranger onto the ground.
Ranger Miyimba was killed on the spot. His body was taken for preservation at the Mugumu District Designated Hospital (DDH).
The Tanzania National Parks’ Commissioner of Conservation, Musa Nassoro Kuji has confirmed the incident, adding that the body of the late Arafat will be transported to Morogoro, his homeland, for burials.
Of late, cases of Human-Wildlife Conflicts some with lethal consequences have been on the rise in many parts of Tanzania.