An elderly woman was killed and eaten by a lion near Zimbabwe’s resort town of Victoria Falls this weekend, according to press reports Sunday.
The Standard said that Tshuma was sleeping outside to guard her cattle from lions and had been left alone by other villagers who preferred to sleep indoors.
State media is reporting that the woman was guarding the carcass of a cow killed by a pride of lions.
Local council official Matthew Muleya told the Sunday News, “What happened is that a pride of lions killed a cow and villagers, as [is] the norm here, teamed up to scare the lions away so that they recover the meat.”
He said the villagers were guarding the carcass and intended to take it away to share the next day.
Muleya told the paper, “Unbeknown to them… the oldest female lion of the pride was sneaking [up] on them.”
Tshuma was reportedly unable to get away fast enough.
The lioness has since been killed by state game rangers.
