Story filed: 14:03 Tuesday 14th August 2001

Saudi authorities are investigating whether its baboon population is out of control after a two-year-old girl was killed.

Baboons are reported to have attacked homes and injured several people in the areas of Taif, Abha, Baha and Fifa.

A National Wildlife Protection Authority official said one snatched the two-year-old from her father.

She was later found dead between rocks in a mountainous area of Taif.

Officials are also reporting panic over baboon attacks on houses and schools in Baha and the Abha Faculty for Girls.

Farmers in the southern mountainous area of Fifa have repeatedly complained, saying 15,000 baboons are running amok, attacking homes and damaging farms.

The Khaleej News reports that Saudi authorities are now drawing up plans to sterilise or poison some of the baboons to check their populations, following a survey by a Japanese research team.

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