A 7-year-old boy has survived nearly a week lost on the savannah in Zimbabwe.
Returning home to his rural village on New Year’s Eve, he avoided lions and ornery herbivores while using a clever trick to stave off dehydration. For food, he ate berries.
Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZimParks) received notice of a missing boy on the evening of December 27th.
A statement from ZimParks explained that fellow villagers, police officers, and park rangers organized a search party, but were hindered by heavy rains. On December 30th, human footprints were found that eventually led rescuers to the boy in the early morning hours of the following day.
“Remarkably, it is estimated that he walked through the harsh terrain of the lion-infested Matusadona National Park for 49 kilometers (30 miles) from his village to the point where he was found,” ZimParks said.
“During this period, he survived on wild fruits and would dig a small hole along the dry river bank to access underground water to drink.”
According to the parliamentarian for the province in which Matusadona lies, the boy “was very frail when he was rescued” and “had to be put on [an IV] drip.”
“What saved him is the technique learnt from a young age in dry [and] drought prone areas of drawing water from a dry river bank — digging a mufuku,” the parliamentarian, Mutsa Murombedzi, wrote on X.
She thanked everyone in and around the community who lent their efforts to the search, calling it “a testament to the power of unity, hope, prayer and never giving up.”
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Stretching 570 square miles, Matusadona is a vibrant ecosystem where much of the classic African megafauna live, breed, and die in peace. Populations of lions, rhino, buffalo, and elephants flourish, making it a real challenge to avoid encountering them, which as a small boy, one could only imagine the consequences.
His technique of digging a mufuku, sometimes called a “gypsy well” in English, was well remembered, and is a day-1 survival technique for getting uncontaminated drinking water if none is available.
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The method is perfectly straightforward. Find a stream or creek where the bank is flat and beach-like. Measure about four hands-width from the water and dig a trench. Smooth down the sides as best as possible.
The river water will eventually seep through the hole, where the gravel, sand, and dirt will help to make the water safer from water-born parasites. The first liter or so of water will be brown and muddy. The more water one scoops out, the clearer it eventually will become.
CELEBRATE This Community Getting Their Little Fellow Back Home…