Crocodile Claims Life Of Plantation Worker In Indonesia

A woman working on a palm oil plantation in central Indonesia was attacked and killed by a crocodile, according to local police, and her body was later found in the animal’s clutches.

Indonesia is home to several species of crocodiles that regularly attack and kill humans.

The 44-year-old woman was working with a colleague in West Kalimantan province on the island of Borneo when the crocodile chased the pair, biting the victim on her left hand and dragging her into a ditch.

The woman’s colleague tried to pull her from the animal’s jaws but lost the fight before running to alert police in the coastal district of Ketapang.

“After a 90-minute search, the victim’s body was found,” local police chief Bagus Tri Baskoro said in a statement late Thursday.

He said the woman’s remains were discovered still in the crocodile’s grip “not far” from the location of the attack., adding that the animal released her body when rescuers approached it.

Borneo is split between Brunei, Malaysia, and Indonesia, and it is home to vast tracts of jungle that host a kaleidoscope of rare animals.

Palm oil plantations and logging projects have in the past been criticised for encroaching on Borneo’s rainforest areas.

In August, a crocodile killed a 54-year-old woman as she bathed in a river on Indonesia’s Maluku Islands.

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.

AFP