Chimpanzee (icon image)
Photo: Roland Weihrauch/ dpa
Several chimpanzees escaped from their enclosure at a zoo in Sweden and were shot dead.
"It's an incredibly sad day," said Park Furuvik near Gävle, a good 150 kilometers north of Stockholm.
According to the TT news agency and other Swedish media, four of the monkeys were shot, and a fifth returned to the enclosure on their own.
In other reports - for example from "Svt Nyheter" - there is talk of three animals killed.
According to TT, the park did not have sufficient anesthetics for all of the animals, which is why the decision was made to kill them.
"These are very strong animals that are absolutely not domesticated," a police spokesman told public broadcaster SVT.
It was the zoo's decision to shoot the animals because of the danger to the public.
People were not harmed, said a spokeswoman for the park operating company to TT.
How the monkeys escaped from the enclosure is still unclear.
bbr/dpa