A 14-year-old girl has died in a horror animal attack after being snatched away and killed by a lion near a nature reserve. The teen had been in a residential compound on a ranch next to Nairobi National Park in Kenya when she was set upon by the wild animal and taken away in its jaws.
Officials from the park confirmed the attack yesterday was witnessed by another teenager, who raised the alarm. A rescue team was sent out and followed a trail of blood to the nearby Mbagathi River. Her body was found by the side of the water with large wounds on her back.
The lion was not at the scene when the body was discovered.
The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said staff have since set a trap and put in place extra patrols to track down the animal.
“Additional security measures” have also been introduced prevent any further attacks, they added.
A statement said: “KWS rangers and response teams were swiftly mobilised and traced bloodstains leading to the Mbagathi River, where the girl’s body was recovered with injuries on the lower back”
“The lion was not sighted at the scene.”
Nairobi National Park, a popular safari spot, is located around six miles from the centre of the Kenyan capital.
As well as lions, it is also home to a number of other wild animals including buffalos, giraffes, leopards and cheetahs.
The KWS, a state-funded wildlife conservation agency, also reported that a 54-year-old man had been killed by an elephant on the same day in Nyeri, a province about 80 miles from Nairobi.
The man had been walking through the Mere forest when he was attacked by the elephant, leaving him with serious chest injuries, broken ribs and internal injuries.
He was rushed to hospital but was pronounced dead a short time later.
In 2024, at least three people in and around Nairobi were killed and injured in a string of attacks by rabid hyenas.
Last February, marauding hyenas killed a man and wounded two people near the Multimedia University campus outside the Kenyan capital, officials said Tuesday.
It prompted hundreds of students to block streets to protest what they called a lack of security.
A 10-year-old boy was also killed in a hyena attack later the same year.
In September, the Kenya Wildlife Service said they believed that an “outbreak of rabies” was behind the “hyena menace” and warned local people not to “take the law into their own hands”.
Joseph Dadacha, senior assistant director at the KWS, said number of hyenas had been “pacified” as part of their operation and said tests of some of the animals had turned up positive for rabies.
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