The forests bordering Budongo Sub-county in Bujenje County, Masindi District, have become a zone of terror for local families. At least eleven people have been attacked by chimpanzees in the past seven months, and two infants under one year of age have lost their lives, a toll that local leaders say reflects a deepening crisis of human-wildlife coexistence that authorities have been too slow to address.
The most recent fatality struck Wiliya Village last Saturday when a three-month-old baby was seized and killed by a group of chimpanzees while the mother had briefly stepped away to breastfeed before returning to collect firewood from Budongo Forest. Eyewitnesses said the infant’s cries drew the animals from the forest edge. Despite frantic efforts by villagers, including Mark Bogere, who confronted four chimpanzees near the scene, the baby died while being rushed to a nearby clinic. The child’s father, Julius Birija, has since appealed to the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) to intervene and prevent further deaths.
A Pattern of Deadly Attacks
Bujenje County Member of Parliament Kenneth Kiiza Nyendwoha confirmed that the Budongo forest fringe communities have endured repeated attacks, particularly involving chimpanzees targeting the youngest and most vulnerable members of households. He said two infants have been killed in the past four months alone, and at least eleven attacks have occurred within the past seven months. Nyendwoha told reporters he has raised the matter with UWA and the Ministry of Tourism on multiple occasions, but no effective intervention has followed.
LC1 Chairperson Hannington Andama attributed part of the escalation to the proximity of shared water sources between human communities and the forest. He argued that chimpanzees are increasingly drawn toward homesteads and that fencing off sections of the forest and providing alternative water sources for residents are the most urgent practical solutions.
Experts note that as populated areas extend into forests, shrinking the natural habitat of chimpanzees, human-wildlife conflicts have grown increasingly frequent. According to Uganda’s National Forest Agency, an estimated three to four attacks on humans by chimpanzees have occurred annually over the last decade — though local communities in Masindi say the current rate far exceeds that average.
What the Law Says And Where It Falls Short
Wilson Kagoro, a UWA Conservation Officer at Murchison Falls National Park, confirmed that the authority is aware of the Masindi incidents and has dispatched assessment teams. He noted that attacks by chimpanzees occurring on community land outside protected areas are considered compensable under current regulations.
That legal framework exists on paper. The Uganda Wildlife (Compensation Scheme) Regulations 2022, gazetted on 5 August 2022, give legal force to a compensation scheme under Section 83 of the Uganda Wildlife Act 2019, covering claims for human death, injury, or property damage caused by wild animals outside a protected area. The Uganda Wildlife Act 2019 specifically lists chimpanzees among the compensatable wildlife species responsible for both death and injury.
In practice, a family seeking compensation must have their legal representative submit a claim to the Wildlife Compensation Verification Committee, which verifies the claim and forwards it to the UWA board with a recommendation. The board then reviews the claim and, if approved, compensates victims according to market rates.
However, the scheme has been plagued by underfunding and inconsistency. Uganda’s Parliament reported that only Shs3.9 billion of the required Shs7 billion had been transferred to the scheme, leaving hundreds of victims without financial relief. In over two financial years, only Shs682 million had been paid out, covering just 121 verified cases, while hundreds of claims remain unsettled.
The inconsistencies in how much victims receive have also drawn sharp criticism. While the law sets a maximum payment of Shs20 million for deaths, Parliament found that some victims received Shs10 million while others received Shs28.7 million, with no clear formula governing the disparity.
Parliament’s Committee on Tourism, Trade and Industry recommended that UWA make compensation payments within 30 working days of claim verification, and explore mobile money as an alternative payment method to ease access for victims in remote areas.
A Wider Crisis Across Uganda
The Masindi attacks are not isolated. Uganda’s revised Wildlife Act was introduced partly in response to the long-running breakdown in relations between protected areas and nearby communities, with financial compensation specifically designed to improve coexistence where chimpanzees and other wildlife cause harm. But community frustration has been building for years. UWA’s own executive director has acknowledged that for chimpanzees living outside national parks and reserves as in the Budongo fringe communities, the authority’s options are limited, with education and awareness as its primary tools.
Parliament also noted that slow progress in installing electric fences has left many border communities across Uganda exposed to repeated wildlife incursions.
Calls for Urgent Action
Local leaders in Masindi are pressing the government on three fronts: fencing dangerous sections of Budongo Forest, sinking boreholes or constructing protected water points away from the forest to reduce the daily movement of residents, especially women with young children into chimpanzee territory, and increasing community awareness and rapid-response capacity when animals stray into villages.
MP Nyendwoha has called on the Ministry of Tourism and UWA to treat the situation as an emergency rather than a recurring bureaucratic matter. For families like that of Julius Birija, the legal framework’s promise of compensation and protection means little if it arrives too late or not at all.