Man freed in crocodile tug-of-war

People frequently fall prey to Zimbabwe's crocodiles

Villagers in Zimbabwe formed a human chain to rescue a man trapped in the jaws of a crocodile, reports say.

Letikuku Sidumbu was crossing a river when the crocodile seized his arm, the state-owned Herald newspaper reports.

He escaped with injuries to his arm, leg, chest and stomach after local villagers linked hands to set him free.

Villagers had been hoping to retrieve a large enough part of his body for a burial should the crocodile win the contest, Mr Sidumbu told the newspaper.

"One thing was clear - that they wanted to salvage at least a piece of my flesh," he said.

'Angry crocodile'

Mr Sidumbu, 32, was reportedly crossing the Mubvinzi river in north-eastern Zimbabwe on a hunting expedition with his uncle when he was attacked.

"I called out to my uncle to hit the crocodile with an axe", he told the newspaper.

But, he said, noise made by their hunting dogs further angered the crocodile, and people from a nearby village rushed to his aid.

Dozens of people in Zimbabwe are killed every year by wild animals - most of them crocodiles, elephants, hippopotamuses and buffaloes.