Infant killed after Chimpanzee snatches her from mother's arms

A chimpanzee recently grabbed an infant from her mother and killed her, sparking outrage in Guinea .

The mutilated infant's body was found 3 kilometers from the Nimba Mountains Nature Reserve , a Unesco World Heritage Site . The child's mother, Seny Zogba, told Reuters, "I was working in a cassava field when a chimpanzee came up from behind, bit me, and pulled my baby into the forest."

Following the incident, residents near a chimpanzee research center in Guinea attacked the facility on Friday.

According to the center's managers, the angry crowd destroyed the building and set fire to equipment like drones and computers. They also ransacked over 200 documents.

Ecologist Alidjiou Sylla said that food shortages in the reserve are causing chimpanzees to leave the protected area more often, increasing the likelihood of attacks. The research center has documented six chimpanzee attacks on humans in the reserve this year.

The forests in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone harbor the critically endangered western chimpanzee. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature , their population decreased by 80% from 1990 to 2014. Only seven western chimpanzees remain in Guinea's Bossou forest, part of the Nimba Mountains Nature Reserve, near local farming communities.

In Guinea, chimpanzees are traditionally respected and often given food, which sometimes leads them to human settlements where they may attack, according to Reuters. The Nimba Mountains also contain significant iron ore reserves, raising environmental concerns about the impact of mining on chimpanzees.