A 10-year-old boy has been eaten alive in front of his siblings in the southern Philippines by a crocodile.
Independent.co.uk reports that he was dragged off from a boat he was riding on with his two older siblings near the town of Balabac.
The area is reportedly notorious for constant attacks by enormously overfed crocodiles.
The predators which exist in saltwater has its habitat shrinking which has led to an increased confrontation between them and humans, authorities in the Philippines said.
Father of the child was unable to find his son during an overnight search.
However, a fisherman later discovered the boy’s half-eaten body in a swamp late on Monday, police said.
“Since 2015, we’ have never had a year with zero (crocodile) attacks” in Balabac, Jovic Pabello, the spokesman for a government council that works to conserve the environment said.
“It’s a conflict on water use and it is becoming terrible,” he told AFP.
In February, a crocodile attacked a 12-year-old boy whole he was swimming in a Balabac river.
However, he reportedly managed to tear himself free from the huge animal when his siblings helped to hit the reptile’s head with oars until it let him go.
A crab-fisherman was also killed and found half-eaten by a crocodile in the area in February 2018.
His death came three months after his 12-year-old niece was also dragged away by a crocodile in late 2017 and was never seen again.
The Palawan island group often called the Philippines’ “last frontier” is home to a vast diversity of flora and fauna, but is threatened by unchecked development.
Saltwater crocodiles are the most giant living reptiles, with the biggest ever measured found in this area of the Philippines in 2011.
The monster specimen stretched 20 ft 3 in (6.17m), took over three weeks to hunt and around 100 people to bring onto land. He was placed in captivity but died 18 months later.
