DHAKA, 11 July 2004 — Bangladesh yesterday threatened to kill 100 marauding elephants which have strayed into the country from India unless Indian officials herded them back. The herd is reported to have killed 13 Bangladeshis and injured dozens.

The elephants are currently roaming in the Gozni area of the northern district of Sherpur, about 200 km from the capital Dhaka.

Unless the animals return to India, Bangladesh has the right to eliminate or destroy them with cooperation from the international community, the Wildlife Society of Bangladesh said in a statement.

“We are all for the welfare of the elephants, but the herd is beyond control,” Kazi Zaker Husain, president of the group, said. “They are attacking people, destroying trees, roads and houses.”

Officials fear that villagers angered by the elephants’ attacks could try to kill the animals, which stray from forests that are encroached upon by people engaged in farming, logging or plantation work.

Husain did not say how many people were killed by the elephants, but Sherpur residents estimate at least 13 people have died and 100 have been injured in the two years the herd has been roaming the area.

The elephants came there from the Garo Hills area of India, but could not return because forests on the Indian side were hastily cleared to build a highway, Husain said. Two Indian elephants strayed over Bangladesh’s southwestern border recently, terrorized villages and injured several people. Notified by Bangladeshi authorities, Indian forest officials chased the animals for days, drugged them and trucked them back home. But officials feel dealing with a bigger herd would be a gigantic task.

Husain said Bangladesh does not have the capacity to feed the elephants or move them elsewhere.

“I have told the Indian officials that Bangladesh cannot provide food or shelter to that huge number of elephants,” the country’s chief forest conservator, Anwarul Islam, said.

There are more than 350 elephants in the hills and forests that sprawl over the 5,000 square miles of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in southeastern Bangladesh. People in the area say elephants often stray into villages in search of food and attack residents, who try to scare the herds away by flashing torches and blowing trumpets.

Elephants killed 162 people and injured 157 in Bangladesh, mostly in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, in the five years to 2002, according to the World Conservation Union.