A farmer who fell in an enclosure of 40 crocodiles was 'pounced' upon by the reptiles and devoured, report says

• A Cambodian farmer was devoured after he fell into an enclosure of 40 crocodiles.
• The victim was using a stick to move a crocodile that had just laid eggs when the reptile grabbed it.

A Cambodian farmer was torn to pieces by his crocodiles after he tried to move one of them that was guarding its eggs, police said.

The victim, Luan Nam, 72, fell into the crocodile enclosure in Siem Reap while trying to use a stick to move a crocodile that had just laid eggs, according to AFP.

The reptile grabbed the stick and pulled him in, and about 40 crocodiles attacked him and left the enclosure drenched in blood.

"While he was chasing a crocodile out of an egg-laying cage, the crocodile attacked the stick, causing him to fall into the enclosure," Mey Savry, police chief of Siem Reap commune, told AFP.

"Then other crocodiles pounced, attacking him until he was dead," he said.

The victim's body bore numerous bite marks, and one of his arms had been bitten off and swallowed by one of the crocodiles, he said.

Photos from the scene show the crocodiles in the bloody enclosure, according to The Telegraph. One image reportedly shows the reptiles surrounding the farmer's body, and one photo shows one of the crocodiles chewing on a shoe.

Nam, who was the president of the local crocodile farmers' association, had been urged by his family to stop raising the animals, commune chief May Sameth told AFP.

Crocodiles are bred in several farms around Siem Reap, the town where the famous Angkor Wat ruins are, and the reptiles' eggs, skins, and meat are harvested to sell and make leather and other products.

Nam's family said that they might now sell his stock, Sameth told AFP.

This is not the first time someone has come to a tragic death at a crocodile farm, a two-year-old girl was killed by crocodiles in 2019 at her family's reptile farm in the same Po Banteay Chey village, the police chief said.