ISTANBUL: A farmer was seriously injured when he was attacked by a lion that had escaped a zoo in southern Turkiye on Sunday, local media reported. The lion was later shot dead.
The male lion, named Zeus, escaped his cage at Land of Lions in Manavgat, a resort city on the Mediterranean coast, in the early hours, the private Demiroren News Agency said. A few hours later, he attacked the 53-year-old man, who was sleeping outdoors after watering pistachio trees.
“I heard a whispering sound. When I lifted the blanket, the lion fell on me,” Suleyman Kir told the agency. “We struggled and fought. ... I grabbed his neck and squeezed. At that moment, he ran off a little.”
The Ilhas News Agency reported that police officers searching for the lion heard the noise of the struggle and scared it off by shooting into the air. Ilhas also showed footage of the lion strolling outside homes before disappearing into scrubland.
Kir was hospitalized with wounds to his head, shoulder and legs. Police teams and drones found the lion in a nearby wooded area.
Land of Lions’ website boasts that the park holds “the world’s largest lion family” of more than 30 animals. It also contains tigers, bears and wolves.
It wasn’t clear how the lion escaped but an investigation has been launched. The zoo did not comment on Sunday.
Man injured in struggle with escaped lion in southern Turkiye
https://arab.news/2zm5g
Man injured in struggle with escaped lion in southern Turkiye
- Kir Suleyman, a farmer, was hospitalized with wounds to his head, shoulder and legs
Zelensky says Russia using Belarus territory to circumvent Ukrainian defenses
- While President Lukashenko has vowed to commit no troops to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, he allowed Russia to use Belarusian territory to launch its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine
KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that Russia was using ordinary apartment blocks on the territory of its ally Belarus to attack Ukrainian targets and circumvent Kyiv’s defenses.
The Kremlin used Belarusian territory to launch its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and Belarus remains a steadfast ally, though longstanding President Alexander Lukashenko has vowed to commit no troops to the conflict.
“We note that the Russians are trying to bypass our defensive interceptor positions through the territory of neighboring Belarus. This is risky for Belarus,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram after a military staff meeting.
“It is unfortunate that Belarus is surrendering its sovereignty in favor of Russia’s aggressive ambitions.”
Zelensky said Ukrainian intelligence had observed that Belarus was deploying equipment to carry out its attacks “in Belarusian settlements near the border, including on residential buildings.
“Antennae and other equipment are located on the roofs of ordinary five-story apartment buildings, which help guide ‘Shaheds’ (Russian drones) to targets in our western regions. This is an absolute disregard for human lives, and it is important that Minsk stops playing with this.”
The Russian and Belarusian defense ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Zelensky said the staff meeting also discussed ways of financing interceptor drones, which officials in Kyiv see as the best economically viable means of tackling Russian drone attacks, which have grown in intensity in recent months.
The president said the Ukrainian military’s general staff had been charged with working out changes to strategy in fending off air attacks “to defend infrastructure and frontline positions.”
Lukashenko this month said Russia’s Oreshnik ballistic missile system, described by Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin as impossible to intercept, had been deployed to Belarus and entered active combat duty.
An assessment by two US researchers, reported by Reuters on Friday, said Moscow was likely stationing the nuclear-capable hypersonic Oreshnik at a former air base in eastern Belarus, a development that could bolster Russia’s ability to deliver missiles across Europe.
