Guard trampled to death by elephant while on look out for escaped lions

The Foskor Mine at Phalaborwa near the Kruger National Park where security guard Eric Kgatla was trampled to death by an elephant
Flickr.com
Jamie Pyatt10 June 2019

A guard on the lookout for a pride of 14 lions that were thought to have escaped from the Kruger National Park has been trampled to death by an elephant.

Eric Kgatla, 45, was working at the Foskor phosphate mine in Phalaborwa, just a couple of miles from the famous game reserve, when he is believed to have surprised the elephant.

He had left his hut before dawn, perhaps to answer a call of nature or investigate noises in the bush, causing it to attack.

A fellow guard, also out on patrol, heard the elephant in the darkness and stumbled across the body of his friend at around 4am on Saturday.

It is thought the elephant may have broken down a fence to get out of the Kruger park.

It came a day after the Limpopo provincial government warned the 13,000 residents of Phalaborwa that 14 lions had escaped from the Kruger.

Rangers tracking the pride say they do not believe they were any of the 1,600 lions on the reserve.

“The pride has been moved further along the Selati river to an area away from humans and where there is an abundance of prey,” said manager Marisa Coetzee.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in