Alligator attacks claim more lives in Angola’s Cuando Cubango province
As first appeared in Epito Reporter in Angola, here. Written by Gaspar Jindaji.
November 11 2022
Officials say 17 attacks reported in the last eleven months
There is a lack of data around alligator populations in the region, hindering efforts at mitigating conflict with the reptiles.
I
mage by Matthew Muth.
Alligators in Angola’s Cuando Cubango Province, some two thousand kilometres outside capital city Luanda, have now claimed the lives of three residents in the region. After a 12-year-old girl on the 3rd of November lost her left arm as a result of an alligator attack in the village of Missombo, two others have lost their lives to the reptiles.
The two new cases were registered in the municipality of Dirico on Saturday, 19th November. The first incident happened around 3 pm when a 40-year-old woman, who was washing clothes on the Kuvango River, in the village of Mbimbi, 35 km from the municipal headquarters, was attacked by an alligator that left her with serious injuries to her face, chest and arms.
The second victim is a 39-year-old citizen who was also surprised by another alligator in the waters of the Kuito River, when he was trying to bathe in the said river and was left with slight injuries to his upper and lower limbs.
The two victims resisted the jaws of the two predators and are already receiving medical assistance from the municipal hospital of Dirico. According to statistics from the Civil Protection and Fire Service in Cuando Cubango, in the last 11 months the province has already recorded a total of 17 alligator attacks, most of which were fatal.
In terms of environmental management, little or nothing is known about the population of alligators and hippopotamuses in the province, nor are there studies on the margins of progression of these species that make it possible to assess the balance of ecosystems shared with humans.
This article is reproduced here as part of the African Conservation Journalism Programme, funded in Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe by USAID’s VukaNow: Activity. Implemented by the international conservation organisation Space for Giants, it aims to expand the reach of conservation and environmental journalism in Africa, and bring more African voices into the international conservation debate. Written articles from the Mozambican and Angolan cohorts are translated from Portuguese. Broadcast stories remain in the original language.
