Three tourists in South Africa suffered broken legs after an attack by excited baboons, which rolled a huge boulder at people. 

The New York Post writes about this with reference to the Wilderness Search and Rescue Service in the Western Cape.

The monkey incident happened in February after a group of seven tourists went on a abseiling expedition in the remote Banhook Mountains in the Western Cape.

The excursion went well until the second day, when the adventurers stopped for lunch and

.

These are one of the largest monkeys in the world, weighing up to 36 kg and 1.2 m long.

The animals looked quite excited and interested in people.  

After seeing the monkeys, the tourists continued their descent from the cliff.

That's when things started to get worse.

Two members of the group decided to descend the waterfall when

The massive stone "exploded on impact", scattering its razor-sharp fragments.

These fragments hit the tourists,

.

Another one received a wound on the body.

At the same time, the fifth tourist was almost thrown from the ledge by a stone, but in the middle of the fall, the man stopped the safety belt.

Photo: WSAR Western Cape

Unfortunately, the rockslide triggered by the primates was far from over:

, forcing them to seek shelter on the rock.

Despite the remoteness, the tourists managed to send an SOS signal.

An Air Mercy helicopter and a Desert Search and Rescue (WSAR) team went to their aid.

The rescue team

, with the help of winches, lowered the paramedics onto the ledge, where tourists were crowded.

Then the most seriously injured tourist was fixed on a stretcher and taken to the nearby boarding area.

Two more wounded were lifted from the ledge in life belts.

Photo: WSAR Western Cape

Photo: WSAR Western Cape

Later, all three were taken to the hospital, and four unharmed tourists descended the cliff on their own.

It is not yet clear whether this act of the baboons was intentional or not.

However, primatologists have their suspicions.

"Whether they threw stones at the tourists on purpose or just knocked it down, I think we will never know, but it was a lot of stones that could be accidentally knocked down. It takes a lot of effort to accidentally knock down a 60-kilogram boulder," the researcher said. monkey, who specializes in rescuing primates from urban areas.

He added that baboons "can get easily upset by things they're not used to, and they're used to people walking on rocks but not coming off them."

At the same time, one of the unharmed tourists said that they "do not believe that the baboons behaved aggressively" and consider the incident a coincidence.

If this interspecies stoning was indeed intentional, it would not be the first time that lower primates have exhibited remarkably human-like behavior. 

We will remind, in India, a man poked a tiger by the tail with a stick for the sake of curiosity, and this became the last act in his life.

Read also:

• A 140-year-old "goat man" died after a failed dehorning operation

• A woman stole an egg from the zoo: what hatched surprised everyone

• The girl refused to marry her cousin: relatives took cruel revenge

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