A 12-year-old Ethiopian girl kidnapped by a group of seven men in order to force her to marry one of them, was found being guarded by three lions who apparently had chased off her captors.
The little girl was on her way home from her school and had been missing for a week since that day. The kidnappers had beaten her many times trying to force her to marry one of them, said Sgt. Wondimu Wedajo, speaking by telephone from the provincial capital of Bita Genet, about 350 miles southwest of Addis Ababa.
The police managed to relocate her, but they couldn’t believe their eyes when they arrived on the scene. The 12-year-old girl was surrounded by three lions. But the lions seemed calm around her and weren’t about to tear her up . Instead, they were guarding her after chasing the captors off.
“They stood guard until we found her and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest,” Wondimu said.
“If the lions had not come to her rescue, then it could have been much worse. Often these young girls are raped and severely beaten to force them to accept the marriage,” he said.
However, some lion experts have expressed doubts about the credibility of the story.
“They were probably preparing to eat her but were intercepted by the police and the others,” game hunter Colonel Lemma Legesse told the AFP news agency.
He said lion attacks on humans and farm animals have become increasingly frequent in the region.
On the other side, Stuart Williams, a wildlife expert, says that the little girl’s crying might have saved her life.
“A young girl whimpering could be mistaken for the mewing sound from a lion cub, which in turn could explain why they didn’t eat her.”
“Everyone thinks this is some kind of miracle, because normally the lions would attack people,” Sergeant Wondimu added.
He said police had caught four of the abductors and three were still at large
According to NBC News, kidnapping young girls has been engrained as a marriage custom in Ethiopia. Nearly 70% of marriages in Ethiopia are forced by abduction, and they are generally practiced in the rural, impoverished areas where most of the of the country’s 71 million people live.
Regardless of whether this was divine intervention or simply coincidence, it’s heartwarming to hear of positive things happening in a country such as Ethiopia. The police have only found four of the seven men involved in this crime, and they are still on the search.
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