Four months ago, Demeteriya Nabire was
killed by a crocodile when she went to the
lake near her home to fetch water. The
animal later came back to the area but
found Nabire’s husband waiting, ready to
take revenge. Demeteriya Nabire was at
the water’s edge with a group of women
from her village – they were gathering
water from Uganda’s Lake Kyoga when
the crocodile grabbed her. It dragged her
away and she was never seen again.
Her husband, Mubarak Batambuze, was
devastated – Nabire was pregnant when
she died, and he had lost not only his wife
but an unborn child as well. He felt
powerless. But then last month he heard
the crocodile had returned. “Somebody
called me and said, ‘Mubarak, I have news
for you – the crocodile that took your wife
is here – we are looking at it now.’”
The 50-year-old fisherman made his way
to the lake with some friends. “He was a
very big monster, and we tried fighting
him with stones and sticks. But there was
nothing we could do,” he says.
So Batambuze went to visit the local
blacksmith.“I explained to him that I was
fighting a beast that had snatched and
killed my wife and unborn baby. I really
wanted my revenge, and asked the
blacksmith to make me a spear that could
kill the crocodile dead. “The Blacksmith
asked me for £3.20 ($5) and made the
spear for me,” he says. It was a
significant amount of money for
Batambuze, but he was determined to kill
the animal that had snatched his future.
“The crocodile ate my wife entirely.
Nothing was ever seen of her again – no
clothes, no part of her body that I could
identify. I just didn’t know what to do – a
mother and her unborn child. It was the
end of my world. I was completely lost.”
Armed with his new spear – specially
designed with a barb on one side – the
widower went on the attack.
When he got to the water the crocodile
was still there, but Batambuze’s friends
took fright. “Please don’t attack this
beast,” they pleaded, “it’s so huge it may
eat you. The spear is not enough – it
won’t finish the job.” But Batambuze
insisted they stay. “I failed killing it the
first time around,” he told them, “I’m not
bothered if I die killing this beast. I’m
going to take it on with this spear, and I
will make sure that it dies.”
A Ugandan Wildlife Authority ranger,
Oswald Tumanya, says the crocodile was
more than four metres long and weighed
about 600kg. “I had so much fear in me
but what helped me to succeed was the
spear,” says Batambuze. He tied a rope to
the end of the weapon so that once the
tip was embedded in the crocodile, he
could pull it out at an angle and the barb
would cut into more of the animal’s flesh.
“I put the spear into the crocodile’s side,
and while my friends were helping to
throw stones at the beast’s back, it tried
getting its mouth up to attack me again.
“It turned violent, and then there was so
much fear in the place. But I was so
determined, and I wasn’t afraid of dying. I
just wanted it dead, so I put the spear in
its side and I pulled the rope. That got the
crocodile into trouble.”
It took an hour and a half for Batambuze
and his friends, fighting and retreating,
exchanging attacks with the enraged
animal, before the crocodile was finally
dead. Exhausted, they made their way
back to their village. “There was so much
shock. What really surprised everybody
was how big the beast was. It wasn’t an
ordinary crocodile. It was so big. And
people called me and my friends heroes,”
he says.
The dead animal was taken to Makarere
University in Kampala, where it was
examined by a vet, Wilfred Emneku. He
says a tibia bone was found inside the
crocodile’s stomach, but while he believes
it’s human he can’t be sure. A crocodile
expert at Charles Darwin University in
Australia, Adam Britton, says he would be
very surprised if any remains inside the
animal’s stomach were those of
Demeteriya Nabire.
“After 12 weeks… under normal conditions,
it would be highly improbable for bones
from the same meal to remain in the
stomach,” he says. So while Batambuze’s
celebrity status endures in his village, it is
unlikely that he will ever have a grave to
mourn at. “Within myself I’m a very
depressed man because I lost a wife and
an unborn child,” he explains.
“But the locals keep on saying, ‘Thank you
for killing the beast, that’s where we fetch
water and we’re sure it would have taken
somebody else. Thank you so much, you
did a great job.’” “So I’m a local hero –
people keep on thanking me.”
www.vanguardngr.com/2015/02/killed-crocodile-ate-wife/

Pathetic.