
Horrifying moment crocodile carries body of teenager along river in its jaws after dragging him away in death roll in front of screaming friend
A teenage boy was mauled to death in Indonesia by a crocodile in front of his horrified friend before he was dragged away in the beast's jaws.
La Bayu, 17, was fishing with his friend Inguu in the Kaleleha River in Southeast Sulawesi on Monday morning when he was snatched up by the huge beast.
Horrific footage taken by a rescue team shows the teen's body being dragged along the river by the killer croc as the predator held his lifeless body in its jaws.
Following the bloody attack, Inguu leapt into the river and tried to grapple with the powerful crocodile in a desperate attempt to save his friend.
However, the animal flung Inguu away as it continued thrashing La Bayu around in a gruesome death roll.
A rescue team arrived at the scene at around 8pm after being notified by the locals.
Iptu Thamrin, spokesman for the Central Buton Regency Police, said: 'At 8:20 pm, Mawasangka Police personnel led by Mawasangka Police Chief Iptu Kamaludin arrived at the location and, together with villagers from Poaroha and Terapung, searched for the victim.
'A total of 100 people were involved in the effort.
'After arriving at the scene, the crocodile was found approximately 50 metres from a bridge, with the victim right in its mouth.'
Rescue workers and residents used a net to catch the animal and collect the victim's butchered corpse.
La Bayu was reportedly found with severe injuries near his armpit, a fractured right arm, a severed left hand, and a torn waist. His body has been handed over to his family.
Ipda Baharuddin, spokesman for the Muna Police, said: 'We urge residents to be more vigilant and temporarily avoid carrying out activities at the location of the incident for safety.'
Indonesia has the most crocodile attacks in the world.
There were at least 1,000 incidents over the past decade - though many more are believed to have been unreported - resulting in more than 450 fatalities, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The tragedy comes after a 13-year-old boy was killed by a crocodile in front of his horrified friends In Indonesia last month.
Muhammad Syahputra Almanda was playing with his friends in a field next to their village in Jambi on May 24 when their football landed close to the river.
The schoolboy chased after the ball, but as he bent down to scoop it from the water, he was attacked by a 13ft crocodile.
Residents were heard screaming in footage of the incident as the young boy was dragged under the water by the crocodile.
Panicked villagers told the authorities, who arrived at the scene and found the predator still with the body before disappearing under the water.
Rescue teams scoured the river on boats and later found the schoolboy's body face down in the water later that evening.
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.
Widespread tin mining has also caused villagers to encroach on the crocodiles' natural habitats, pushing the creatures closer toward people's homes.
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.
It also comes after a heavily pregnant woman was killed by a crocodile last month while cooking lunch at her flooded home in Indonesia.
Munirah, 28, was standing in the swamped kitchen when the animal sank its fangs into her leg in North Kalimantan on May 27.
The mother-to-be, who was only identified by her first name, screamed as the beast then tried to thrash her in a death roll.
Hearing her pained cries, Munirah's sister Ana Maria rushed over and found her sibling holding onto a tree branch.
She rushed out of the room to find a weapon with which to beat the huge animal, but it had already dragged Munirah into the water by the time she returned.
Villagers searched along the Mambulu River. Footage shows several men firing a shotgun at the predator, but it retreated into the muddy waters.
Around half an hour later, they found a lifeless Munirah body floating in the flood.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Fresh Covid fears as Asia case surge shows no sign of slowing
Several Asian countries, including India, Thailand, and Indonesia, are experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases, raising concerns about more infectious variants. Health authorities are monitoring Omicron subvariants LF.7 and NB.1.8.1 as potential drivers of the surge, though they are not yet designated as variants of concern. The NB.1.8.1 subvariant, found in multiple countries, exhibits a strong ability to bind to human cell receptors, potentially increasing its infectiousness. Common symptoms of the new strains include fatigue, sore throat, nasal congestion, and gut discomfort, with current vaccines expected to protect against severe symptoms. While most infections result in mild symptoms, vulnerable groups are advised to seek medical attention for severe symptoms like shortness of breath or low blood oxygen levels.


The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
Covid surge in Asia sparks concern about emergence of more infectious variants
India, Thailand, Indonesia, and several other countries in Asia have seen a surge in Covid cases since mid-May, sparking concerns about the emergence of more infectious variants of the novel coronavirus. India, which currently has more than 5,700 active Covid cases, reported four deaths from the infection over the last 24 hours. Although hospitalisations due to Covid remain low, India's health ministry is urging the public to remain careful, get tested quickly when symptoms appear, and continue to use masks in crowded spaces. In Thailand, hundreds of Covid patients have required hospitalisation since the beginning of June, while at least one has succumbed to the virus. The country reported 28,300 cases over just the first two days of this month, with the Bangkok metropolitan area accounting for the bulk of them. According to the Department of Disease Control, at least 70 people have died from Covid in the Southeast Asian country so far in 2025, mostly in large cities. The death rate has hovered around 0.106 per 100,000 people, suggesting the virus has not become deadlier. Indonesia has advised its healthcare institutions to remain vigilant and boost Covid surveillance amid a surge in infections attributed to new highly transmissible but less deadly variants of the coronavirus. "Cases are indeed increasing, but the rise is caused by variants that are relatively less deadly,' health minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin told reporters earlier this week. Health authorities are monitoring Omicron subvariants LF.7 and NB.1.8.1 for driving the ongoing surge in infections in Asia. These strains are not yet labelled as variants of concern but are only suspected to be causing an increase in Covid cases. The NB.1.8.1 subvariant has previously been reported in Thailand, Australia, China, Britain and the US. It's already known to be a recombinant virus formed from the merging of two coronavirus variants. Lara Herrero, a virologist from Griffith University in Australia, suspects that NB.1.8.1 spread more easily than other variants. Studies of the variant on cultured laboratory tissues reveal that the new strain has the strongest ability to bind to human cell receptors, facilitating its entry into cells. 'Using lab-based models, researchers found NB.1.8.1 had the strongest binding affinity to the human ACE2 receptor of several variants tested, suggesting it may infect cells more efficiently than earlier strains,' Dr Herrero wrote last month in The Conversation. Fatigue, sore throat, nasal congestion, and gut discomfort are widely reported to be the main symptoms of infection by the new strains. According to the World Health Organisation, current Covid vaccines should protect against severe symptoms caused by the newly reported variants. In India, though, nearly 50 per cent of the new infections are still caused by the older JN.1 strain, according to data from the country's SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium. Most people who get infected experience only mild symptoms that disappear on their own or with over-the-counter drugs such as cough medicines, analgesics and decongestants. However, vulnerable groups such as the elderly or those with comorbid conditions are being urged to seek hospital care if symptoms appear. Healthcare experts urge infected individuals experiencing shortness of breath, extreme fatigue or blood oxygen levels below 95 per cent to immediately seek medical attention.


The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
Mea Culpa: the Ukrainian army's modern version of ancient heroics
An article about the changing tactics of the Ukrainian armed forces featured a former computer programmer with the call sign 'Grumpy', and said: 'Grumpy is the sort of warrior that young people enjoy pretending to be in video games and nostalgic tales of SAS daring-do from the Second World War.' A couple of readers commented that they expected to see 'derring-do' there, an old-fashioned construction meaning daring deeds or daring action, associated with Biggles and similar fiction. In fact, it is a much older compound than that, and it literally meant 'daring (to) do', so our spelling was true to its origins. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, Chaucer used 'dorrying don', from Middle English durren, to dare, and don, infinitive of do, to mean 'daring to do' what is proper to a brave knight. It was spelt derrynge in the 1500s and was mistaken for a noun by Spenser, who took it to mean 'manhood and chevalrie'; before being picked up from him by Sir Walter Scott and passed on to the Romantic poets as a pseudo-archaism. All we were doing was modernising it, just as Grumpy was. Angel Digits: A striking instance of spurious accuracy cropped up in our report of the case of the British couple accused of drug smuggling in Indonesia. We reported: 'Mr Umbara told the district court in Denpasar, Bali, that a lab test result confirmed that 10 sachets of Angel Delight powdered dessert mix in Collyer's luggage, combined with seven similar sachets in his partner's suitcase, contained 993.56 grams (2.19 pounds) of cocaine, worth an estimated 6bn rupiah (£271,743).' Thanks to Iain Brodie, who found the use of five, three and six significant digits discombobulating. No doubt the first number was what was reported to the court, in a faintly comical attempt to make the lab results seem properly scientific and ungainsayable. But to a normal person, we are talking about a kilo of cocaine, which does not need to be converted into pounds and ounces, as our readers are familiar with kilograms. And the 6bn rupiah is obviously a rough estimate, so £270,000 would have been more than enough detail for the sterling equivalent. Best of three: In an article about Donald Trump's use of pardons, we said: 'With well-known rappers including Kanye West, Snoop Dogg and Lil Wayne, the latter of whom himself received a pardon from Trump…' Thanks to Teri Walsh for suggesting that we should have said 'last', because 'latter' refers to the second or 'later' of two things. Backing and forthing: In a news story about the strategic defence review, we reported that, 'just two weeks out from the review's publication, there was still some toeing and froing over which department would foot the bill', referring to a dispute between the foreign office and the Ministry of Defence over the cost of the Chagos treaty. Thanks to Roger Thetford for pointing out that this is usually spelt 'toing and froing', because otherwise it looks like toeing as in 'toeing the line'. The departmental squabble has nothing to do with feet, but with the phrase 'to and fro', meaning back and forth. Incidentally, Roger asked if 'fro' is one of those words that is only ever used with one other word. It is, so I have added it to my list, which started as a Top 10 but now has 21 entries: amok, askance, aspersions, bated, betide, clarion, dudgeon, dulcet, figment, forfend, fro, halcyon, hale, inclement, knell, petard, shebang, shrift, scot, serried and squib. Not the dog show: Sometimes one of our writers uses a word I don't know and it is fine because it is guessable from the context, and I come away feeling that I have learned something. Thus it was with our article about the threat to Google's dominance of internet search, which said that one of the things holding back the company's artificial intelligence rivals is 'the unnecessary cruft that comes with the current overly verbose AI answers'. I didn't know that 'cruft' is slang for 'badly designed, unnecessarily complicated, or unwanted code or software', but I could guess and now I do. The sum of human knowledge has been increased.