This is one of those stories that we’re never really sure to believe or not. A bit like Herodotus and innumerable other historians and explorers over the centuries, “Here be monsters” and all that. Hey, this is Africa, anything could have happened, right? But then again crocodiles really do eat people and someone standing around in the shallows would be a tempting morsel for more than just a crocodile.
So, it might well have happened:
Crocodile kills pastor as he baptises followers on lake in Ethiopia
That’s certainly a test of faith. Those who have it being those willing to go back and try again, obviously.
Lake Abaya, one of Ethiopia’s largest lakes, “is known to have a huge crocodile population”, according to Ethiopian news site Borkena.
Despite a lack of state media coverage, news of the gruesome accident spread rapidly after eyewitnesses shared their accounts on social media, the site says.
Baptism in a lake known to have a large crocodile population might not be the wisest thing. If the Jordan had had them we might be talking of John the Baptist as having relocated.
“He baptised the first person and he passed on to another one. All of a sudden, a crocodile jumped out of the lake and grabbed the pastor,” local resident Ketema Kairo told the BBC.
Well, yes, except there’re an awful lot of maybes, reportedlys and so on littering the various reports. Even a local source isn’t entirely certain:
A protestant church pastor is reportedly attacked and devoured by a crocodile at Lake Abaya which is close to Arba Minch city, some five hundred kilometers to the south west of the capital Addis Ababa, according to eye witnesses accounts who took the news to social media.
Hmm, we’re really not sure. Perhaps we’ll just go with out of Africa, always something new?
But above all, laughing is the wrong reaction here. No, totally wrong.
I’d say the Oz Greens would be envious. After all, they’ve stopped us shooting the crocs. I’m sure they’d love to have a few of us sacrificed to the Crocodile God.