Wild elephants kill a mother and a child

Wild elephants strayed into a village in Indonesia’s Sumatra island and killed a woman and her 3-year-old daughter, a conservationist said Monday.

The elephants were searching for food in the village, which lies just inside the Bukit Barison National Park, said Nurchlois Fadli from the World Wildlife Fund for Nature.

The attack on Friday was the latest in a series of deadly incidents between elephants and humans living near or in the park. Environmentalists say illegal logging and farming is destroying the endangered animals' natural habitats, forcing them to seek new feeding grounds.

The mother and child were killed inside their house after other villagers fled, said Fadli.

The elephants also devoured crops and fruits in the village, he said.

About 2,500 elephants are believed to live in the park, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) northwest of the capital, Jakarta.