MONKEYS MURDER FAMILY OF FIVE

A MUM and four of her kids were crushed to death after a wall was brought down by a troop of marauding MONKEYS.

They were killed by falling masonry after the wall was “violently shaken” by the apes while the family slept in the courtyard of their home.

The family were sleeping outside because their indoor ceiling fan wasn’t working during scorching hot weather in Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh, India.

After discovering the bloodbath, a neighbour ran into the street yelling: “The monkeys have killed them all!”

District magistrate Vikram Singh met the survivors and said they were getting the “best possible treatment”.

He said: “It was a tragic incident and five members of the family died immediately after the wall collapsed on them.”

The incident was the latest in a long line of monkey-related tragedies in India, which is thought to be home to around 50million of the primates.

Last August, a 50-year-old man

VIOLENT: Apes ( pulled down wall on top of victims in Uttar Pradesh ( died in Sambhal after falling from a terrace at his home when he was attacked by a troop of monkeys.

Reports at the time said it was the sixth monkey-related death in the area in 2019 alone.

In June last year, a baby was killed by a monkey which jumped into her cot to steal a milk bottle.

Red-faced rhesus macaques have also been known to spread havoc in Delhi, snatching food and phones and even breaking into homes.

More recently, police said a troop of monkeys had attacked a medical official and snatched blood samples of coronavirus patients in Meerut.

People living near the medical college feared a further spread of the virus if the monkeys carried the samples into residential areas – although there is no evidence apes can be infected with the virus.

The destruction of many monkeys’ natural habitats is the main reason the animals move into urban areas in search of food, environmentalists say.