Crocodiles turn on humans amid Iran water crisis

Lying on the floor of his modest home, Siahouk was in excruciating pain from the injury to his right hand, the result of a nightmarish encounter. Just two days earlier, on a scorchingly hot August afternoon, the frail 70-year-old shepherd had gone to fetch water from a pond when he was pounced on by a gando, the local name for a mugger crocodile in Iran's Baluchistan region.

"I didn't see it coming," he remembers of the traumatic event two years ago, with the shock and disbelief still vivid in his eyes.

Siahouk was only able to escape once he "managed to squeeze the plastic [water] bottle in between its jaws", he says, reliving the moment as he rubs his bony face with his wrinkled left hand.

The blood loss left Siahouk unconscious for half an hour. He was only found after his flock of sheep returned unaccompanied to his tiny village of Dombak.

Siahouk's account echoes that of many other victims, mostly children. More often than not, emotive headlines about Baluchi kids suffering grisly wounds inundate Iranian media, yet quickly disappear.

In 2016, a nine-year-old called Alireza was swallowed by one such crocodile. And in July 2019, Hawa, 10, lost her right arm in an attack. Collecting water for laundry, she was almost dragged in by the crocodile before she was saved by her companions in a tug of war.