An eight-year-old boy has been found alive after surviving for five days in an inhabited park lions and elephants in the north of Zimbabwe. He writes it BBC quoting a member of the country’s parliament. The ordeal began when the little boy, Tinotenda Pudugot lost 23 km from home in the «dangerous» Matusadona Game Parkhe said on X the parliamentarian of Mashonaland West Mutsa Murombedzi.
The child spent five days “sleeping on a rock outcrop among roaring lions, elephants and eating wild fruit,” he said. The Matusadona game park has around 40 lions and for a time had one of the highest population densities of these animals in Africa, according to African Parks quoted by BBC. Murombedzi said the child used his knowledge of the wilderness and his skills survival to stay alive.
Tinotenda survived by eating wild fruits and dug small wells in dry riverbeds with a stick to get drinking water, a skill that is taught in this drought-prone area. Members of the local community of Nyaminyami They organized a search party and beat drums every day to bring him home. In the end they were the forest rangers to retrieve the child: On her fifth day in the wilderness, Tinotenda heard a guard’s car and ran towards her, narrowly missing her, the lawmaker said.
Fortunately, the forest rangers went back and spotted “small fresh human footprints”, and then searched the area until they found him. “This was probably his last chance to be rescued after 5 days in the wild,” the MP said. The park has an area of over 1,470 square km and is home to zebras, elephants, hippos, lions and antelopes. On social media, users celebrated the child’s strength and survival instinct: “He will have an incredible story to tell when he returns to school.”