A 12-foot crocodile killed an elderly woman in Indonesia, police said, and a video shows 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 searching for clams when the reptile attacked.
Rahakbauw resident Rustam Ilyas said family and friends began a search when she failed to return home.
After finding a sandal and part of a leg in the river, the villagers reported the incident to the police, who found the crocodile eating the woman’s body and shot it dead.
The predator was pulled from the water and locals recovered parts of Rahakbauw’s body from its stomach before cutting the animal into pieces and disposing of it.
Local residents, aided by police and military, pulled the beast from the water after it was shot dead.
The victim has been identified as Halima Rahakbauw, a 54-year-old grandmother.
The huge beast is seen after being shot dead by police, who tied ropes to it and dragged it to land.
Locals inspect the dead reptile in the water near the village of Wali in the Maluku Islands
The video shows residents, assisted by Bursel police officers and the Indonesian National Army, pulling the crocodile out of the water.
Locals recovered parts of Rahakbauw’s body from the animal’s stomach before cutting it into pieces and disposing of it.
“The victim died horribly, his legs and hands were swallowed by a crocodile about 12 feet long,” Ilyas said.
Another eyewitness, who was driving on a nearby bridge at the time of the attack, told local media: “I saw someone swimming, but I couldn’t see his body, just his legs.
“To be sure, I walked about 15 meters, got out of the car and after seeing 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 in the search.”
The man named Ali Rahangmetan described how he walked towards the shoreline to check whether the body part belonged to a human or an animal, before realising to his horror that the crocodile had a carcass in its jaws.
“It looks like a crocodile is walking and carrying a corpse,” he said. “The characteristics of the person are unknown, neither the sex nor the head are visible anymore, only the legs and intestines are visible.”
Shocked locals are seen gathering around the crocodile after hearing the news that it had savagely attacked Rahakbauw.
The video shows locals and officials dragging the beast’s carcass to be cut open.
At the same time, villagers began to express concern about Rahakbauw’s whereabouts.
Her relative, Jamia Seknun, said she had been seen walking that morning while holding a bucket she used to collect shellfish.
They put the pieces together and discovered that the victim must be Rahakbauw, a fact that was confirmed when parts of his body were removed from the dead crocodile’s stomach and examined.
The video shows residents, assisted by police officers from the Bursel Police and the Indonesian National Army, removing the crocodile from the water before placing it for dissection.
“Villagers had to cut open the crocodile’s belly to extract some of the victim’s body parts,” a local police officer said.
The corpse of the crocodile after it was shot by police. It was then pulled out of the water and cut open.
The river where Rahakbauw had been clamming when she was mauled to death.
Neither police nor villagers were able to identify the species of the crocodile. 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 massacred nearly 300 crocodiles in revenge after a local man was killed by one of the reptiles.
In 2019, a scientist was dragged into his enclosure by a massive captive crocodile and killed on the island of Sulawesi.
