Apparently widespread deforestation has led to organized monkey attacks in Kassala, a city in Sudan.  Apparently the day-long attacks are driven by a need for food.  The monkeys are purportedly snatching food from children, shelves of bakeries and grocery stores, and invading homes to raid refrigerators…

From The Advertiser “Monkeys attack women, children“:

Hordes of monkeys are running wild in the Sudanese state capital Kassala, attacking women and children and looting shops for food, Al-Anbaa newspaper reported today.

The groups are going on the rampage in two suburbs of the city, close to the frontier with Eritrea, the newspaper said.

The monkeys launch “organised attacks which last several hours”, targeting “bakeries and grocery stores”.

They attack women and children, run into homes, “breaking kitchen utensils and snatching food from the children” and open the doors of refrigerators to get at the food inside, according to one resident, Salah Osman al-Khedr.

He put the phenomenon down to the wholesale cutting down of trees which has deprived the monkeys of their sole source of food.

The attacks start at dawn and sometimes last until dusk, he said.