A 12ft crocodile mauled a grandmother to death in Indonesia, police have revealed, with video showing the moment authorities recovered her body from the belly of the beast.
Halima Rahakbauw, 54, was washing pots in a river in Wali village on the Maluku islands after spending Tuesday morning looking for clams when the reptile struck.
Rahakbauw’s neighbour, Rustam Ilyas, said relatives and friends started a search when she failed to return home.
After spotting a sandal and part of a leg in the river, villagers reported the incident to police, who found the crocodile eating the woman’s body and shot it dead.
The predator was hauled out of the water and locals recovered parts of Rahakbauw’s body from its stomach before cutting the animal up into pieces and disposing of it.
Local residents, helped by police and the military, pulled the beast out of the water after it was shot dead
The victim has been named as 54-year-old grandmother Halima Rahakbauw
The huge beast is seen after being shot dead by police, who tied ropes around it and dragged it onto land
The dead reptile is inspected by locals in the water near Wali village on the Maluku islands
Video shows residents, assisted by police officers from the Bursel Police and the Indonesian National Army, pulling the crocodile from the water
Locals recovered parts of Rahakbauw’s body from the animal’s stomach before cutting it up into pieces and disposing of it
‘The victim died horribly, their legs and hands were swallowed by a crocodile that was about 12ft long,’ Ilyas said.
Another eyewitness, who had been driving over a nearby bridge at the time of the attack, told local media: ‘I saw someone swimming, but I couldn’t see their body, only their legs.Â
‘To make sure, I went about 15 metres, got out of the car and after I saw clearly that it was a human being eaten by a crocodile, after that I reported it to the Village Official and local officials and contacted the community to help search.’
The man named Ali Rahangmetan described walking down towards the shoreline to check if the body part belonged to a human or animal, before realising to his horror that the crocodile had a dead body in its jaws.
‘It looks like a crocodile is walking, carrying a corpse,’ he said. ‘The characteristics of the person are unknown, both the gender and the head are no longer visible, only the legs and intestines are visible.’
Shocked locals are seen gathering around the croc after hearing the news that it had savaged Rahakbauw
Video shows locals and officials dragging the carcass of the beast to be cut open
At the same time, villagers began to raise concerns about Rahakbauw’s whereabouts.
Her relative, Jamia Seknun, said they had seen her walking earlier that morning while holding a bucket that she usually used to collect shellfish.
They pieced together that the victim must have been Rahakbauw – a fact confirmed when her body parts were pulled from the dead crocodile’s stomach and examined.
Video shows residents, assisted by police officers from the Bursel Police and the Indonesian National Army, pulling the crocodile from the water before laying it out to be dissected.
‘The villagers had to cut open the crocodile’s belly to remove some of the victim’s body parts,’ a local police officer said.
The corpse of the crocodile after it had been shot by police. It was then hauled out of the water and cut open
The river where Rahakbauw had been searching for clams when she was mauled to death
Neither the police nor villagers could identify the crocodile’s species. Indonesia is home to several species of crocodiles that regularly attack and kill humans.
On Sunday, a 63-year-old tin miner was killed by a crocodile near a river on Bangka island in Sumatra.
In 2018, a mob in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua butchered nearly 300 crocodiles in revenge after a local man was killed by one of the reptiles.
In 2019 a scientist was dragged by a huge captive crocodile into its enclosure and killed on the island of Sulawesi.
