Farmer killed by wild elephant on way to banana orchard in Rajasthali, Rangamati

A farmer, Usching Marma, 45, was killed by a wild elephant in Rajasthali upazila of Rangamati district. It happened at about 10am on Thursday, 27 February 2025, in Kaitak Para village of Gaindya union. He was the son of the late Kyao Marma of the same village. Iqbal Bahar Chowdhury, officer in charge (OC) of Rajasthali police station, confirmed the death.

According to the OC, Usching Marma had left home in the morning to work in an orchard in his area when an elephant attacked him on the way and trampled him. Jagonews24 reported that local people took him to hospital, where the doctor on duty declared him dead.

His son, Mongchai Marma, said work was under way in the family's banana orchard in Kaitak Para. His father was attacked on his way there after leaving home that morning and died on the spot.

Lamuching Marma, member for ward 6 of the Gaindya union parishad, said herds of wild elephants often come down into settlements in search of food. That morning, too, a herd had come into a banana field, he said.

Rajasthali is a hilly upazila of Rangamati district covering 145.03 square kilometres. It borders Kaptai upazila to the north, Belaichhari to the east, Bandarban district to the south and Chittagong district to the west, and is made up of three unions: Bangalhalia, Gaindya and Ghilachhari, with 9 mauzas and 106 villages. The 2022 census counted 27,864 people there, the largest group being Marma (36.6 per cent).

The elephants of Bangladesh are Asian elephants, listed as Endangered worldwide on the IUCN Red List since 1986 and as Critically Endangered in Bangladesh. An IUCN survey in 2016 counted 268 resident elephants in the country. They live mainly in the south-east, chiefly in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and Cox's Bazar district, with others along the northern border in districts such as Sherpur, Jamalpur and Netrokona.

An elephant needs more than 150 kilograms of vegetation and about 140 litres of water a day. Experts say that as settlements, farmland and infrastructure degrade forests and habitat, elephants are pushed out of the forest in search of food, bringing them into conflict with people. The conflict costs elephants too: the Forest Department recorded 34 elephants killed in Bangladesh in 2021 alone.

Photo: Rifatwm / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources: Jagonews24, Paharbarta, Mongabay, The Business Standard, Wikipedia