This is not the first year that a story has been spread on the RuNet about several Africans who died during a ritual that required raping a female crocodile. According to online publications, the men were attacked by other reptiles. We checked whether this really happened.
The story of the death of three brothers from the teeth of crocodiles has been circulating on the Internet since 2016. This incident allegedly occurred in the Limpopo province of South Africa. The deceased allegedly suffered from impotence and sought help from a shaman, who informed the men about a family curse placed on them and offered a folk remedy. To solve their problem, the trio had to find a crocodile and have intercourse with her. To do this, the sorcerer gave the “patients” a sacred amulet, supposedly pacifying crocodiles. However, after capturing the female reptile, the brothers were attacked by her relatives, as a result of which the men died. Typically these publications are accompanied by a photograph of a group of dark-skinned people in the water holding a crocodile. In this case, the man's groin area in the foreground is often pixelated, and in the center of the image there is a white Play button, hinting that this is a video preview.
Posts with this story are very popular on social networks. For example, in the public “Oh damn! - Where the hell? - Damn it! on VKontakte there is an entry about an unsuccessful attempt to rape a crocodile collected 882,000 views and more than 3,600 reposts. Such posts can also be found in other “VK” communities, including “Leprosy"(420,000 views, 4,500 likes), Just Art (147,000, 1100), "Smart is a smart magazine!" (153,000, 620) and "Incredible facts"(69,000, 345), as well as on the website "Peekaboo"(more than 2700 pluses). In addition, the deaths of three Africans were reported “Vesti.ru", TV channel "NTV", Obozrevatel, newsru.com and other media.
First, let’s look at a similar story that has not spread across the RuNet. Moreover, when telling her story they used the same photograph of men holding a crocodile. Also in 2016, English-speaking Internet resources reported about a “gang” of brothers from Limpopo who raped a reptile that had previously attacked their cattle. Below is the full text in our translation.
Four brothers and their cousins from Limpopo were arrested after they caught a crocodile eating their livestock and allegedly gang-raped it for days.
The farmers, whose names are being withheld pending an investigation, were reportedly so fed up with the crocodile eating their goats every day that they set a trap and caught the reptile alive. Then they took the prey to their site, where in one of the huts they took turns sexually assaulting the poor animal. Presumably it was a female. The brothers were discovered when the Parks and Wildlife Department began investigating based on an anonymous tip.
One of the brothers, who spoke to reporters from iMzansi, said his family saw nothing wrong with punishing the predator who preyed on their livestock. “We are not at all attracted to crocodiles or any other animals. We just wanted revenge, to really punish her harshly,” he said, without showing any remorse.
The other brother was also defiant and said that at least they used protective equipment. “My two brothers and I took precautions. “We don’t know what sexually transmitted diseases crocodiles have, but the rest didn’t use protection and seemed to enjoy it because they ended the process prematurely,” he said.
Official Representative SANParks, South African National Parks (the leading environmental authority in South Africa - Ed.), said that the brothers would be charged with cruelty to animals, as well as illegal keeping of wild animals.
Despite the fact that the story seems dubious, it was picked up by some sites ridiculing African culture - to this paid Attention fact-checking project Snopes. In fact, there is not a drop of truth in the plot, because its primary source is the satirical portal iMzansi, where the story published October 18, 2016. Below are disclaimer, posted on the website.
iMzansi is an online news and political satire publication that may use real names in semi-real or mostly fictional stories. Some of the news articles contained on iMzansi.co.za are fictional and sometimes fake.
Any resemblance to truth is entirely coincidental, with the exception of all references to politicians and/or celebrities. In this case, they are based on real people, but are still almost entirely fictional.
The iMzansi website is designed for a mature, sophisticated and discerning audience.
Although publications about vigilante farmers and impotent brothers are often accompanied by the same photograph, these texts tell different stories. The source of the story about three South Africans who died during the rape of a crocodile, usually indicate Zimbabwean news site ZW News, where the publication was published on December 8, 2016 (it has already been deleted, but stayed archival copy). However, sometimes you can find references to the South African site Mzansi Live (Mzansi is an unofficial Name South Africa). In addition, on ZW News it is indicated that the news was written according to a report by mzansi life (perhaps there was a typo in the name of the source). According to the Internet Archive, there is material on Mzansi Live published at least November 30, 2016, and we could not find any earlier mentions. Below is the full text of the news.
A bid to become "bed warriors" turned tragic after a Limpopo family lost three sons to a crocodile attack. Members of this family, known for its curse - the inability to express themselves at the most crucial moment (during sexual intercourse), fell into the deadly jaws of the strongest reptile after the sangoma (healer. — Approx. ed.) gave them muti (means traditional medicine. — Approx. ed.) and ordered to rape a female crocodile.
An elderly sobbing father, who lost three sons during the ritual, said that the muti dissolved in water was supposed to weaken the reptiles so that the young men could easily catch the crocodile and take turns raping it, thus completing the ritual.
The circumstances of the attack by other reptiles are still unclear. It is believed that some crocodiles were resistant to the haze, so they were not weakened as planned.
The family member claims that everyone trusted the sangoma because he was known for treating such male problems and was said to have performed successful rituals in the region on several occasions. “This is a loss for the family. The boys made a bold choice, the married ones needed to save their marriage, the divorce rate in the family was too high, which led to the decision to carry out the ritual,” he said. “Like men, marriages are strengthened in the bedroom during intercourse, but my cousins had problems with this.” We have lost precious lives and weep, but heaven rejoices that we have received pure souls. According to tradition, we cannot question the knowledge of the sangoma, but only agree with the result.”
Limpopo's political leadership does not encourage dangerous traditional practices and has urged citizens to prioritize safety and abandon dangerous rituals.
Two bodies of the victims were found. Unfortunately, the hungry reptiles have already started eating the third corpse.
Although the two stories presented are different (different number of brothers mentioned, presence/absence of victims and different motives for the rape), there are quite a lot of common details: the same attached photo, the scene is Limpopo, the gang rape of a female crocodile, all the participants are brothers, there is a comment from family members, and at the end the actions of government authorities are described. Moreover, earlier in 2016, another similar story appeared: this time about the rape of an alligator in a zoo.
Since 2016, in some Russian media, including “Channel 5", channel "360°" And "Express newspaper", public "News from the world of men"on VKontakte (330 likes, 5000 views) and on the website Fishki.net (16,000 views) there were reports of the death of 24-year-old Jimmy Olsen, a zoo employee in Florida. The man allegedly tried to rape the young reptile, but police said CCTV footage showed him being attacked from behind by a larger specimen and dragged underwater. In reality, nothing like this happened, since this is a fiction well famous to our readers of the satirical website World News Daily Report, where the “news” appeared back on March 11, 2016. Jimmy Olsen - a character in the DC comics universe, a reporter and friend of Superman, and is actually shown in the photo Gavin Hart, employee of the Crocodile Park in Spain.
We also note that, although the ZW News website initially removed the retelling of the news about the death of three brothers, less than two weeks later it appeared there again with the following introduction: “The following is a satirical story about the “brothers from Limpopo”, which first appeared in the South African online publication Mzansi. We don't usually post stories like this, but we decided to post it after it went viral and took social media by storm." However, we note that we were unable to find a disclaimer indicating that Mzansi Live is publishing satire.
As for the photograph that was attached to the stories about the crocodile, we could not find its original source. On Snopes suggestthat in the picture people are holding a dead reptile. In 2016, a user of the Skeptics Stack Exchange website claimedthat the earliest publication of the photo was on a Twitter account SAfrognews, there the picture without the Play icon and without pixelation allegedly appeared on October 12, 2016, but it is not possible to verify this due to the deletion of the account. According to the girl, the photo was captioned as follows: “Brave men from Limpopo caught a crocodile, which they were chasing along the Levubu River.”
Based on all of the above, we can say that with a high probability the story of the death of people during the rape of a crocodile in Limpopo is a fiction. Most likely, it is based on a couple of satirical news stories that appeared a few months earlier.
Most likely not true
- Is it true that a Swede once died as a result of being raped by a nest of hornets?
- Is the story true about an American who asked to be transferred to a women's prison and raped a fellow inmate there?
- Is it true that crocodiles cry when they eat their victims?
- Is it true that birds brush crocodiles' teeth?
- The fictional world of Gek publics (VMGP)
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