Living in a village next to a beautiful lake sounds wonderful. However, the situation is very different when your ‘neighbor’ is a giant human-eating crocodile.
Lake Victoria in Uganda is the largest lake in Africa and the second-largest in the world, but one story perhaps most famous about the lake is that of Osama, a 75 -year -old Nile crocodile responsible for killing and eating 80 people.
The 16-foot-long beast has terrorized residents of Luganga, a village in Uganda, for years. From 1991 to 2005, he swept a tenth of the village population.
The story revolves around how the killer crocodile would drag children as they fill buckets of water by the lake, or swim under a fishing boat and deliberately capsize them.
Conniving, cruel, unstoppable – the villagers believe Osama is an immortal animal or, as some say, Satan himself.
A man witnessed and survived an attack by that terrifying reptile, but his brother was not so lucky.
Paul Kyewalyanga, who was rowing in the back of his boat when his brother Peter fished from the front when Osama jumped in and devoured him.
“Osama just emerged from the water vertically and flopped into the boat. The back of the boat where I was sitting was submerged,” said Paul.
He tries to ask for help but Osama bites Peter’s leg with his monster jaw and starts pulling him, trying to drown him into the water.
“Peter was clutching the side screaming. They fought for about five minutes until I heard a tearing sound.
“Peter shouted, ‘He’s broken my leg.’ Then he let go and was dragged into the lake. A few days later we found his head and his arm,” Paul added.
Villagers began asking for help and in 2005 the crocodile was captured with the help of 50 local men and wildlife officials using a pair of cow’s lungs as bait.
Some people wanted to kill the reptile, but wildlife officials told villagers they could not kill the animal ‘with impunity’.
Instead, Osama was given to the owners of Uganda Crocs to use in their breeding program. The farm also serves as a tourist attraction, and people can come to see the crocodiles there which are said to number up to 5,000.
Source: Daily Star, Mirror UK, Opera News
