Daily Mail, citing local sources, reported a horrific incident in one of Southeast Asia’s most beautiful islands.
The tragedy unfolded in Majapahit village, Southeast Sulawesi province, a tourist island in Indonesia, when the intact body of a man was discovered inside the stomach of a nearly 9-meter-long giant python.
The victim was 61-year-old La Noti, a gentle farmer known to locals for his daily routine of caring for his livestock and poultry early each morning. But a fateful Friday morning turned into a nightmare.
According to witnesses, while feeding his chickens near the coop, he was suddenly attacked by an 8.5-meter python. The massive reptile coiled around him and slowly swallowed him whole. When La Noti didn’t return home by evening as usual, his family immediately reported him missing and launched an urgent search.
The next morning, his motorcycle was found by the roadside, near a small garden. Residents expanded their search and discovered a motionless python with an unusually swollen body lying in the bushes just a few meters from the livestock pens.
Sensing something was terribly wrong, they caught the python and cut open its belly with a knife. The sight inside stunned the entire village: La Noti’s body was still intact and fully clothed, but covered in the animal’s digestive fluids.
“This is the first time someone in the area has been swallowed by a python,” said La Ode Risawal, a villager. “Recently, pythons have been appearing more and more in gardens and homes. They are no longer afraid of people.”
A video capturing the python’s dissection is currently circulating on social media, showing villagers carefully cutting open the middle of the animal’s body while the victim’s relatives stand silently, utterly shocked. La Noti’s body, approximately 1.62 meters tall, was later returned to his family for funeral arrangements.
Regional disaster management officials stated that this was an unprecedented event in the locality and warned residents to exercise extreme caution when entering forests or dense areas alone.
Biologists suggest that the increase in python sightings near residential areas is a consequence of deforestation and habitat disturbance, forcing predators like pythons to venture into human living spaces in search of food. Although pythons over 6 meters long are not uncommon in Indonesia and the Philippines, fatal attacks are still considered extremely rare.
However, similar tragedies are not isolated incidents. Earlier this year, an elderly woman who went missing in another village was also found inside the belly of an 8-meter python after several days missing, shocking local public opinion.
La Noti’s haunting death is not only a heartbreaking loss for his family but also a wake-up call about the increasing dangers from nature as humans and wildlife are forced to share increasingly shrinking living spaces.
