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Sierra Leone Soldiers Kill Deadly Six-Foot Leopard |
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| SIERRA LEONE: November 16, 2005 | ||
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FREETOWN - Soldiers in Sierra Leone shot dead a six-foot (1.8 metre) leopard which had killed two people and terrorised villagers for weeks as it roamed the remote north, a senior local official said on Tuesday.
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Farmers in the Shengbe chiefdom, around 200 km (120 miles) north of the capital, Freetown, set traps for the animal and called in the army after labourers refused to go to work for fear of their lives. "The leopard ran into one of the traps. When soldiers heard groans as the leopard tried to get out, he was shot four times," Alie Balasama, paramount chief of Shengbe, told Reuters. The dead leopard was then paraded on a stick in front of residents of the main local town of Kabala in an effort to calm nerves, Balasama said. Officials say sightings of wild animals that fled during Sierra Leone's 10-year civil war are becoming more common. Rampaging elephants killed eight villagers in the east of the country and chased 600 others from their homes in July last year before they were brought under control by traditional hunters and soldiers.
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REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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