A 29-year-old man from Victoria Falls had a hair-raising encounter with a lion over the weekend. Metrod Tshuma’s ordinary day turned into a life-threatening ordeal when he tried to scare away the lion, which had wandered into the community’s cattle grazing area.

Tshuma heard people shouting and dogs barking, followed by the unmistakable roar of a lion. He ran towards the danger with several others, but the lion ambushed him from behind. “It went into a thicket close to where I was, with my colleagues behind me. The lion came from my back and attacked me,” he recounted. The lion bit off his thumb and clawed his head and hand.

Injured and bleeding, Tshuma stumbled toward a tree and cried out for help. “I managed to escape by pushing it away. I cried out, injured and in pain, later my colleagues came to rescue me.” Tshuma was rushed to Victoria Falls Hospital, where he remains under medical care, nursing deep wounds.

The lion is alleged to have killed a neighbor’s cow the day before and after attacking Tshuma, it went on to maul two donkeys. The community is on edge, having lost more than 50 cattle to wild animals this year alone. “I am appealing to the authorities to help us. Some of these lions are collared. School children walk long distances to school and they are in danger,” said a community member.

Tshuma thanked God for protecting him from the lion’s deadly attack. “I thank the almighty God for protecting me because I was going to be killed by that lion,” he said. As Tshuma recovers, the community remains vigilant, hoping for a solution to the growing human-wildlife conflict.

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