Farmer torn apart by 40 crocodiles after being dragged into enclosure by beast ‘protecting her eggs’
AN ELDERLY man died when he was ripped apart by some 40 crocodiles after falling into their enclosure.
The farmer, 72, was killed during the horrifying accident on his family’s reptile farm in Cambodia.
Luan Nam was trying to goad a crocodile out of its cage where it laid its eggs with a giant stick when the creature grabbed hold of the stick in its powerful jaws and pulled him in.
Nam was killed after some 40 crocodiles swarmed around and tore into his body.
The enclosure was reportedly left filled with blood following the sickening attack in Siem Reap, some 160 miles north of the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.
Chilling photographs show one of the crocodiles with Nam’s shoe in its mouth.
One of Nam’s arms was also reportedly torn from his body and swallowed whole by the horde.
Police chief for Siem Reap commune Mey Savry said: “While he was chasing a crocodile out of an egg-laying cage, the crocodile attacked the stick, causing him to fall into the enclosure.
“Then other crocodiles pounced, attacking him until he was dead.”
He added that his remains were found covered in bite marks.
Nam’s body was eventually recovered from the enclosure, where a number of crocodiles were still paddling.
Crocodiles are commonly farmed in South East Asia, often for their meat and their skin, which is turned into leather.
There is also a lucrative trade in their eggs and young.
Before his death, Nam was president of Cambodia’s Crocodile Association.
His family had reportedly begged him for years to retire and leave the crocodile farming business, according to local official May Sameth.
A two-year-old girl was killed and eaten by crocodiles in the very same village just four years ago after she wandered into her family’s reptile farm.
Siem Reap is close to the famed ruined city of Angkor Wat, Cambodia’s most popular attraction.
The farmer is at least the second person to be killed by a crocodile this week.
In early May, the remains of a missing fisherman were found inside two crocodiles in Australia.
Last year, two US tourists were attacked by a crocodile at a resort in Mexico when one went swimming in the ocean at night and the second came in to help him.