- Illustrative photo.
MAKASSAR, (Indonesia): A woman was found dead inside the belly of a snake after it swallowed her whole in central Indonesia, the police said on Wednesday (July 3), the second python killing in the province in a month.
Siriati, 36, went missing after she left her house on the morning of July 2 to buy medicine for her sick child, the police said, prompting relatives to launch a search.
Her husband Adiansa, 30, found her slippers and pants on the ground about 500m from their house in Siteba village, South Sulawesi province.
“Shortly after that, he spotted a snake, about 10m from the path. The snake was still alive,” local police chief Idul, who like many Indonesians has one name, told AFP.
Village secretary Iyang told AFP that Adiansa became suspicious after he noticed the python’s “very large” belly.
He called the villagers to help cut open its stomach, where they found Siriati’s body.
Such incidents are considered extremely rare, but several people have been swallowed by pythons in recent years.
A woman was found dead in June inside the belly of a reticulated python in another district of South Sulawesi.
In 2023, residents in the province killed an 8m python, which was found strangling and eating one of the farmers in a village.
A 54-year-old woman was found dead in 2018 inside a 7m python in South-East Sulawesi’s Muna town.
And the year before, a farmer in West Sulawesi went missing before being found being swallowed by a 4m python at an oil palm plantation. - AFP
