GIRL KILLED BY A ROCK THROWN BY ELEPHANT
A SEVEN-YEAR-OLD girl was killed when an elephant hit her on the head with a rock as she posed for a picture.
Heartbreaking footage shows bystanders trying to save the schoolgirl as she lay bleeding on the ground.
The child was having a photo taken next to the enclosure containing the female elephant called Assia when it picked up a large stone in its trunk and threw it in the air.
It hit the girl in the back of the head as her family watched in horror.
An onlooker filmed the aftermath of the incident on their mobile phone and posted it to social media. The footage shows the rock that caused the unnamed girl’s tragic death at the zoo in the Moroccan capital Rabat.
Local reports said her dad had lifted her up on his shoulders outside the enclosure so her mum could take a snap of the two of them with their back to the animals when she was struck.
A spokesman for the zoo offered his condolences to the family. He said there had been no security breaches and she had not crossed into a protective area outside the enclosure.
He added: “Accidents of this type are rare, unforeseeable and unusual.”
But eyewitnesses in Rabat said the ambulance took too long to arrive.
One added: “How is it possible that the place receives a large number of visitors but there is no ambulance station?”
The tragedy, which happened at 1pm local time on Tuesday, was the first of its kind since the zoo opened in 2012.
Last October, an elephant called Ali threw a stone in the face of a 26year-old woman visiting a Taiwanese zoo, causing her to lose a tooth.
More recently, in May, a gorilla at Cincinnati zoo had to be shot dead after a three-year-old boy fell into the enclosure. Last month at Disney World in Florida, a two-year-old boy was killed by an alligator in a lagoon.