Residents of the Chinotimba area are complaining following the death of a woman who was killed by a lioness blaming three people for allegedly feeding the deceased to the beast.
“They fed her to the lion this was clearly a ritual,” charged Johnson Gomwe yesterday. [ THE PICTURES – To obtain the full pictures, follow the LIKE BUTTON at https://www.facebook.com/ZimEye/ and then send a REQUEST for “Lion Devour Pictures Pictures”… PLEASE NOTE that this service will stop after 0645Hrs today]
The development has seen the Tshuma family and friends seeking the services of soothsayers to determine what truly transpired.
Tragedy hit the woman last Saturday morning when she was devoured by a lion while trying to scare away a ferrocious pride of lions from a cow they had killed for meat.
It is widely held that lions will run away in terror when they see a group of people charging at them. But this was not the case and the woman met her fate while guarding a cow carcas that had been killed by the lions.
After the pride killed the cow, villagers had teamed up to scare the lions and recover the meat.
However, one of the female lions randomly launched an attack on the villagers killing the granny instantly before feeding on her.
Hwange Rural District Council deputy chairperson Mr Matthew Muleya whose local authority has jurisdiction over the resettlement area confirmed the incident to the State Media and identified the woman as a Mrs Tshuma.
“It’s true that an elderly woman from Woodlands resettlement area was attacked and killed by a female lion in the early hours of today (Saturday) — around 2am. What happened is that a pride of lions killed a cow and villagers, as the norm here, teamed up to scare the lions away so that they recover the meat. They managed to scare away the pride of lions and took possession of the carcass,” said Muleya.
“The villagers took guard of the carcass with the intention of removing the meat at sunrise. The granny was part of the villagers who were guarding the meat. However, unbeknown to them was that the oldest female lion of the pride was sneaking on them. It then pounced on the villagers. Most of them managed to escape but the granny who was seated could not stand up and run, resulting in her being attacked and killed on the spot,” added Muleya.
He said after killing her, instead of eating the cow the lioness started feasting on the granny’s body from the legs up to the chest.
“We had to send our rangers to the scene who arrived and found the lioness still feeding on her body and killed it. We had to skin the lion so that we recover some body parts, which it had consumed, for burial,” he said.
Mr Muleya said the granny was not the owner of the killed beast but was helping her neighbour who also escaped the attack.
Mrs Tshuma was buried the same day, a few hours after her demise in the resettlement area because of the condition of her remains.