An Evening of Terror in Hargeisa

The streets of Hargeisa remained deserted on the 29th of April when the breaking news of a lion on the loose was announced on the radio and over the television. Many who thought it was a prank from the Ministry of Information wondered how a lion could go loose in the city. 

 

The initial bulletin was broken at around 6:30 PM, shortly after Iftar since it is Ramadan. The announcement read, “We urge the Hargeisa City residents to remain indoors this evening until it would be announced again that it is safe to go outdoors. A lion has escaped from its cage in a city hotel where it was kept by a former Somaliland Interior Minister as a pet. One of the three lions came out of its cage and pounced on the caretaker, on Oromia immigrant. The three lions then tossed the caretaker in the air as they landed their claws on him. The unnamed caretaker was helpless. One of the lions then rushed through the gate and escaped from the hotel compound. Once out of the hotel compound, the lion fiercely pounced on a mother who was going about her business. Luckily the woman’s son ran off and called for help. The son of the ex-minister who happened to close to the scene responded and shot the lion in the belly. It is believed that the wounded lion has since escaped from the scene where it had left the woman unconscious. The public is being urged to stay indoors as security agencies have been dispatched to hunt the rogue lion. We will keep you updated as soon as more information comes in.”

 

It was an announcement that sent a shiver down the spines of many, while others thought they were being pranked. I pricked my head outside the window to see if the news I was watching was real or it was a dream. To my surprise, there was no one in the streets near my residence. At that moment I called a friend who confirmed that indeed a lion had escaped from the city hotel.

 

No sooner had I closed my window than I saw a contingent of armed policemen patrol the street. Dozens of police vehicles revved by, all with men in uniform ready to fight the enemy. A second thought came to me, “One lion! Why police officer? Where is the game wardens?” So many questions were crossing my mind but none seemed to have answers at that moment. I knew the lion had to die when the men in uniform would set their eyes upon it. I remember saying, “They gonna rain bullet into the poor creature”.

 

As residents remained deeply scared in their home, the police force, armed to the teeth were in a frantic search of the Lion...I heard my neighbour screaming when his daughter told him that she had seen something like a lion on their roof. Alas! Lion on the roof? Impossible! They later laughed tears of joy when they learnt it was a stray cat when it meowed. I wanted to burst into laughter but the thought of a poor lion out there being hunted overshadowed everything I could think of.

 

 At 9.00 pm that night, many residents who had halted their plans to go out got a sigh of relief when the radio and the TV announced that the rouge lion had been spotted and shot DEAD. It was announced that the lion had run and hid in a gully where a police officer spotted it and did it “Justice”. 

 

I later learnt that the angry residents later descended on the dead lion with clubs and sticks and killed it one more time. One of them even bragged that he had killed the king of the jungle. They later dragged it to the nearby open field and set the carcass ablaze as one of the witnesses, Guleid Simba narrated.

 

However, many questions are left unanswered even as the caretaker and the women recuperate in the hospital. How did the ex-Minister manage to keep lions in the city? Is it legal to keep these big cats as pets? Should the lion have been sedated and caged rather than being hunted down and killed? Where are the animal right activists? Will there be compensation to the victims - caretaker and woman?

By Sudhir David