An elephant went berserk at Gwaluba village in Lupane outside Beit Bridge, trampling a 67-year-old local woman to death, destroying a hut at another village and sending mourners at a funeral wake scurrying for cover, before being shot by local scouts.

Local police spokesperson Insp Trust Ndlovu confirmed the incident, which occurred on Thursday last week at around 04:00. The victim was identified as Ms Josephine Ngwenya, whose body was taken to a local mortuary. “I can confirm that an elephant entered the homestead of Pangacia Ngwenya and proceeded to a hut, where it forcibly broke the door and dragged out the victim, using its trunk. The elephant raised the woman with its trunk, hitting her against the ground a couple of times, and then trampled her to death,” Ndlovu said.

“After killing the woman, the elephant moved for about 10 kilometres towards the local business centre and had people who were gathered for a funeral running for dear life, but no one was hurt as they watched it from a distance while it was sniffing through the hut´s windows. It moved on to another homestead nearby, where it sniffed through the window of a kitchen hut and later destroyed it,” said the police spokesperson.

The elephant was later tracked down by local game scouts in the bushy areas, but it managed to elude them and ran towards the centre, where it caused confusion and mayhem among community members as they took to their heels to avoid being harmed by the charging animal. It was, however, gunned down before making it to the business centre.

Elephants are a perennial problem in the area as they have taken a number of lives and destroyed crops willy-nilly, prompting villagers to resort to a number of practices such as lighting fires and growing paprika in an effort to scare the pachyderms away.