A young boy was rescued after surviving five days in a game park full of lions and elephants in Zimbabwe, a lawmaker in the east African country said this week.
Mutsa Murombedzi, a member of Zimbabwe's parliament, said in a Wednesday post on social media that Tinotenda Pudu had strayed into the Matusadona Game Park and ended up "sleeping on a rocky perch, amidst roaring lions, passing elephants… and just the unforgiving wild," before he was eventually found by rangers.
CBS News partner network BBC News said Zimbabwe's national Parks & Wildlife Management Authority had confirmed the incident and said Pudu was just 7 years old. The BBC cited the parks authority as saying the young boy had wandered about 30 miles from where he lives.
💫 A boy missing & found in Matusadonha game park
A true miracle in remote Kasvisva community, Nyaminyami in rural Kariba, a community where one wrong turn could easily lead into a game park. 8-year-old Tinotenda Pudu wandered away, lost direction & unknowingly headed into the… pic.twitter.com/z19BLffTZW
Murombedzi said Pudu survived thanks to his knowledge of the wild and survival skills, eating fruit and digging down into dry riverbeds to find water.
She said members of the local Nyaminyami community launched their own search and beat drums daily in hopes that Pudu would find his way back home, but in the end it was rangers who spotted "fresh little human footprints" and managed to track him down.
Matusadona Game Park covers about 570 square miles and is home to elephants, hippos and lions, all of which can present a threat to humans. According to the BBC, it is currently home to about 40 lions.
Murombedzi lauded the rangers and the local community for their tireless efforts to find Pudu, and called his safe return "a testament to the power of unity, hope, prayer and never giving up."
Tucker Reals is CBSNews.com's foreign editor, based in the CBS News London bureau. He has worked for CBS News since 2006, prior to which he worked for The Associated Press in Washington, D.C., and London.
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