Residents of a village in the coastal Kilifi County are living in fear of attacks by wild animals after a lion killed a 10-year-old girl on Tuesday night.

The attack is said to have happened at around 3am (0000 GMT) when Winnie Makupe was sleeping in the family's grass-thatched house with other family members.

“We were awoken by screams after a lion sneaked into our house and grabbed Makupe with its jaws and ran into the thick bush,” recounted the victim’s grandfather Katana Karisa at a hospital mortuary.

Mr Karisa said efforts to rescue her were futile as the hungry lion would recharge and chase them when they approached the scene.

“Neighbours, who heard the screams, joined us while armed with pangas, bows and arrows,” he said, adding that “by this time, the lion had already vanished into the bushes and the screams of our dear one had also diminished.”

Police and the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) officers joined the search for the girl in the hope of finding her alive.

“We found a traumatising scene of the girl’s remains a kilometre away from the home at around 11am (0800 GMT),” he said.

Human-wildlife conflict

Earlier, residents of a nearby village also rescued 14-year-old schoolboy Kelvin Mbingwa from a lion that attacked him in broad daylight.

A local politician Stanley Kenga urged the government to intervene in order to end human-wildlife conflict.

“A group of about five lions and [an] uncounted number of hyenas suspected to have escaped from Tsavo National Park and Boni forest in Tana River County have terrorised residents for the past two months,” he said.

Mr Kenga said residents are living in fear of being attacked by lions and hyenas that have invaded the area following a prolonged drought in the park.

Contacted for comment, the KWS coast conservation assistant director Adan Alio said the agency had dispatched a team of game rangers to track down and capture the animals, adding that affected residents should file for compensation.