Ethiopian Story: Saved By Lions

Show Notes

Today's story is a pretty popular one. If you've been on the internet for a while you may have seen this story floating around at some point. It is the story about a young girl who was kidnapped but saved by Lions in Ethiopia.

If you have had any encounters or experiences with these stories, or if there are any other scary African stories you would like to hear, please send an email to [e-mail]

Places to read:
https://medium.com/chameleon/the-kidnapped-12-year-old-girl-rescued-by-lions-e921f311b55d
https://www.indiatoday.in/fact-check/story/fact-check-old-controversial-story-of-african-lions-saving-a-girl-surfaces-again-1478427-2019-03-15
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna8305836

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What is African Horror Stories?

This podcast brings to you a collection of scary stories from all over Africa. Are they real or just myth? You'll have to ask the scared student, the passer-by or even the crying child who all swear by what they saw #reallifemeetsfiction

Now this is not particularly a horror story, but it is a very unusual event and I would love to share it with you all

In early June 2005, a group of Ethiopian kidnappers abducted a 12-year-old girl and held her hostage for a week.

Now unfortunately this is pretty common in a few countries and the kidnapped kids end up being sold into sex trafficing rings, illegal adoptions or forced into child marriages (which is also unfortunately a lot more common than it should be). In other words the black market for children is booming.

So on this fateful day, this child, who we will address as Sandra, was on her way home from school when she was approached by seven men and abducted.

According to my research, they were going to force her to marry one of them. There is not a lot known about the week she spent in captivity except that she was beaten regularly.

Now after 7 days missing, there was almost no hope that they were ever going to find her. All the data on child brides suggested she would live a life of slavery, beatings, rape, and unwelcome pregnancies.

Still, the police and her parents refused to give up. New information led to the police closing in on the kidnappers, who at this point were panicking and already on the move.

Now what happened next was something nobody would have ever predicted.

The police raced to the kidnapper's last known location, a remote hideaway backed up to the jungle. But when they arrived, they were completely shocked by what they saw. Three big lions were guarding the whimpering little girl. And there were no signs of the kidnappers.

Based on the girl’s testimony, the lions noticed the kidnappers brutally beating her and immediately came to her rescue. They chased off the kidnappers and then stayed with the girl for half a day until the police arrived.

The lions never touched the girl and as soon as the authorities showed up, they fled back into the jungle.

Now no one knows why the lions acted that way, infact some experts believe that the lions had planned on eating the little girl. Some said that her whimpering had triggered their biological instinct as they associated it with the mewing of a baby lion.

Regardless of the reason, many have called it a modern-day miracle as the girl was saved from decades of suffering by those lions.

She was reunited with her family and had to be treated for all the cuts and bruises she got from the beatings she received.

The police were able to capture 4 of the kidnappers but 3 of them are still roaming free.