Tokyo, 7-25-2022 (AFP) - 42 people have been injured by stray macaques in the western Japanese city of Yamaguchi since the beginning of July, in attacks of an unusual scale that have forced local authorities to use hypodermic stun guns to calm them down.

Macaques are common in the Japanese archipelago, where they are sometimes seen as a nuisance, breaking into homes or plundering crops.

Although it is unusual for these little monkeys to directly attack humans, both children and adults have been scratched or bitten by these animals in recent weeks.

"The whole of Yamaguchi is surrounded by mountains, so it is not rare to encounter monkeys there," an employee of the Japanese city's municipality told AFP on Monday.

However, he noted that "recording so many attacks in such a short period is not uncommon," adding, "In the beginning, the attacks targeted only children and women. But recently, elderly men and adults have also been targeted."

Local authorities have been patrolling since the first attacks on July 8, but have so far failed to catch any macaques. It remains unknown whether the attacks are related to an aggressive isolated group of monkeys, or whether they reflect behavior that has become widespread among these primates.

These incidents made headlines in the Japanese media, which reported many testimonies of residents of Yamaguchi who fell victim to them. "I heard crying on the ground floor, so I rushed to the place, and there I saw a monkey attacking my child," said the head of a family recently to the local newspaper, "Mainichi."