ONGENGA – A 46-year old man at Onangama village in the Ongenga constituency of Ohangwena Region was attacked and injured by a buffalo. Fritz Iyambo sustained injuries on his legs and left rib and is receiving treatment in Engela State Hospital.
Iyambo narrated to New Era from his hospital bed that two men came to his cuca-shop and told him that they saw an animal that looked like a lost cow. “We decided to go check it properly to confirm whether it was a cow or something else. The moment we moved near the bush where people saw it coming from the buffalo attacked me,” said Iyambo.
He was kicked and stamped several times in the chest and all over the body. “It was very painful especially when it gored me,” said a deeply troubled Iyambo.
Iyambo was not the only one who was attacked by the buffalo, according to another villager Nikanor Nghinaundafakafo, who survived the attack with no serious injuries. The buffalo also attacked an elderly woman in the village.
Nghinaundafakafo told New Era that he has been having nightmares since the attack. “We are living in fear, we do not know whether it came alone from where it came or whether it strayed from a group near our village. It was scary and dangerous,” he noted.
Iyambo is a father of four children and has been living at the village for almost 10 years but had never seen a buffalo before.
The warden officer for Ohangwena Region, Martin Herman, told New Era that the police informed them of the buffalo but they found the buffalo dead, killed by villagers, when they arrived in the area. Herman said the animal was a sub-adult female buffalo, which they suspected came from Angola.
“We decided to hand the meat to the headman for him to distribute to his villagers because we did not find anything on the buffalo that can show that it was not healthy for human consumption. We do not think that it was sick because we took some samples that we tested, but we can also not say it was 100 per cent healthy,” he noted.
By Loide Jason