M. Yunus, Aceh, Indonesia grandfather killed by crocodile while taking taking a bathe in the river behind his home. Search parties find man’s ripped body 100ft from where he entered waters along with what was thought to be the crocodile days later.
A 68 year old grandfather in Indonesia has died after he was ‘ripped’ in half by a crocodile while washing himself in the river last week.
Moments prior to the fatal crocodile attack, M Yunus, 68, from Aceh province, had told his wife Dimyam, 64, that he was going to bathe in the Peureulak River behind their home on Thursday.
It wasn’t until after the grandfather failed to return home for several hours, concerns were sparked about his well being, including fears he may have drowned in the water.
When Dimyam went to the river to check on her husband, she stumbled across the missing man’s clothes and mobile phone on the grassy banks.
She ran back to their village and called local police and her family for help while fearing the worst, local media reported.
Iptu Andi Ananta Grilya Utama, Ranto Peureulak Police Chief, said in a statement: ‘Suspecting that her husband had drowned, the victim’s wife then informed her son who lives in Langsa.’
Emergency services, rescue teams, and local volunteers scoured the river but failed to find the elderly man’s body.
The search was ended on the morning of August 30, when East Aceh Regional Disaster Management Agency personnel finally discovered Yunus’s corpse drifting downstream around a mile away from where he had left his clothes.
He was reportedly caught in a wooden branch and the entire upper half of his body was missing.
Local authorities believe the man was attacked and devoured by a crocodile the dailymail reported.
The remains of his body were collected and taken home for a funeral but his upper body, head and arms have yet to be found.
Authorities believe the killer croc had eaten the rest of the grandfather in the terrifying incident.
Farm workers found a massive dead crocodile suspected of killing Yunus along the riverbank on August 31.
It was lying lifeless in the undergrowth at the edge of a palm oil plantation.
A shaken resident, Abdullah, said: ‘We thought it was the crocodile that ate Yunus, so we cut it open but we found no human body parts inside.
‘People from Bhom Lama and Paya Meuligo villages now feel worried and reluctant to carry out their activities as usual around the river.’
The Indonesian archipelago is home to 14 types of crocs – with a large population of extremely large and violent estuarine crocodiles that flourish in the region’s climate.
Conservationists believe that crocodiles have been driven further inland closer to villages due to overfishing reducing the crocodiles’ natural food supplies combined with habitat loss from the development of coastal areas into farms.
With uneducated locals in the developing country still using rivers for bathing and primitive fishing, the deadly combination of factors has led to rising numbers of crocodile attacks.
Last week’s crocodile attack comes after a grandmother in Indonesia was mauled to death by a 12ft crocodile last month, with released footage showing authorities recovering her body from the belly of the beast.
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.
In 2019 a scientist was dragged by a huge captive crocodile into its enclosure and killed on the island of Sulawesi.
