Woman Killed by Crocodile Attack in Indonesia

Woman Killed by Crocodile Attack in Indonesia

A crocodile attacked and killed a woman while she was bathing in a river in eastern Indonesia, according to police and local sources on Wednesday. Villagers later recovered parts of her body from the reptile, which they had killed.

Indonesia, known for its various species of crocodiles, often experiences deadly encounters between these reptiles and humans.

The victim, 54-year-old Halima Rahakbauw, was swimming in a river in Wali village, located on the Maluku islands, after searching for clams on Tuesday morning when the crocodile attacked.

When Rahakbauw didn’t return home, her neighbor, Rustam Ilyas, said that relatives and friends organized a search. Upon discovering a sandal and a body part in the river, villagers informed the police, who subsequently killed the crocodile.

"Villagers had to open the crocodile's stomach to retrieve some of the victim's remains," a local police officer, who wished to remain anonymous due to not being authorized to speak on the matter, told AFP on Wednesday.

Neighbor Ilyas reported that the crocodile was approximately four meters (12 feet) long. However, neither the police nor the villagers could identify the species.

In a separate incident on Sunday, a 63-year-old tin miner was killed by a crocodile near a river on Bangka island in Sumatra.

Indonesia has a history of such incidents; in 2018, nearly 300 crocodiles were slaughtered by a mob in Papua in retaliation for the death of a local man. In 2019, a scientist was dragged into an enclosure and killed by a large captive crocodile on the island of Sulawesi.