Sri Lankan crocodile on a river bank in the Bundala nature reserve in the southern district of Hambantota.
Sri Lankan police on Friday discovered the body of a 24-year-old journalist from the British daily Financial Times. The young man would probably have been killed by a crocodile.
Paul McClean’s body was discovered by divers in the peat moss of a lagoon in the coastal village of Panama, Sri Lanka , in the southeastern island of the Indian Ocean. Sri Lankan police announced on Friday that a 24-year-old journalist with the British daily Financial Times was probably killed by a crocodile.
“There were six or seven wounds on his right leg ,” said a police official, contacted by phone by AFP. The body was stuck in the mud roughly where it was last seen by those with it ” .
An expected autopsy
Paul McClean was allegedly carried away by a crocodile on Thursday afternoon, the same source said. An autopsy was due on Friday to determine with certainty the circumstances of his death.
According to the British press, the young man was on vacation on the island with friends. He was on the beach when he walked away to find a toilet and stumbled upon an area known to be infested with crocodiles. According to a witness cited in particular by the Daily Mail , the young journalist was washing his hands when the crocodile grabbed him and dragged him in this area where other people also reported quicksand.
Crocodile attacks are rare in Sri Lanka. But during the monsoon this year, authorities warned residents of flooded areas of the risk posed by these reptiles.
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