A missing 12-year-old boy in northern Australia may have been “attacked by a crocodile.” The boy disappeared yesterday after swimming in Mango Creek near Palumpa, a small, mostly indigenous settlement about seven hours’ drive southwest of the territory’s capital Darwin. “Initial reports were that the boy had been attacked by a crocodile,” police said.
Crocodile attacks are rare in the Northern Territory. A 4.5-metre crocodile was shot dead after stalking locals near Palumpa in 2013, while a 54-year-old man was mauled in an attack in the same area in 2017. A saltwater crocodile had a nasty experience earlier this year, being wounded, cooked and eaten after threatening another community in the North.