Indian district is sterilising menacing monkeys, but Nepal’s border villages have no protection from primates

On Nepali side, farmlands lie abandoned, food stocks are raided, and entire settlements are gradually being emptied as people migrate for safety, livelihoods.

As monkey menace continues to devastate farms and force families to abandon villages in the far-western hills of Nepal, neighbouring India has moved ahead with a systematic sterilisation campaign to control the growing primate population. On the Nepali side of the Mahakali river, however, local people say there is still no concrete or coordinated plan to address the escalating crisis.