Overview
- Police tracking a large crocodile during a Komati River search shot the animal and airlifted it for inspection, where specialists found human remains now sent for DNA analysis.
- The search began after flooding near Komatipoort swept away a vehicle linked in reports to 59-year-old hotel manager Gabriel Batista, prompting days of drone flights, helicopter patrols and dive teams.
- Officers focused on a roughly 4.5‑metre crocodile that lay motionless in the sun with a swollen abdomen and ignored rotor noise, a pattern they say often follows a large meal.
- Investigators also recovered several items of footwear from the animal and are examining them, while cautioning that such finds do not, on their own, prove attacks on other people.
- A SAPS dive-unit leader, Captain Johan “Pottie” Potgieter, was lowered by rope to secure the reptile in a high-risk move later praised by the force, highlighting the hazards of flood rescues in crocodile habitat near Kruger National Park.