05-02-2022, 03:36 PM
Goad
South African Hunter Mistakes Black Woman for Hippo, Shoots It
If you search the name “Ramokone Linah” on Google Images, you’ll see several pictures of hippopotami but zero snapshots of the black South African woman named Ramokone Linah, who was shot by a white Afrikaner because he mistook her for a hippopotamus.
Linah, 38, suffered gunshot wounds in one arm. Her male companion allegedly hid until he was able to notify police and an ambulance.
White South African farm owner Paul Hendrik Van Zyl, 77, was arrested last Tuesday and charged with attempted murder for “firing shots in the direction of the woman,” who’d been fishing with her male partner in a river in the northern section of Limpopo province. Police raided Van Zyl’s farm and seized several firearms during the arrest. Witnesses say they heard Van Zyl tell cops that when he saw Lina and her partner wading through the river, he “mistook them for hippos and monkeys.”
According to a police spokesperson whose African name is so long and unpronounceable you should cut me some slack for not even attempting to type it, “The arrested suspect alleged that he was shooting at the animals.”
Van Zyl was released on a bond of 1,000 rand (about $62) and won’t have to appear in court until May 18. Apparently the life of a black woman who resembles a hippopotamus is a very cheap thing in South Africa.
Sadly — or amusingly, take your pick –, this is not the first time something like this has happened in South Africa. In March of 2017, a farmer in Limpopo province shot and wounded a farmhand with a pellet gun after allegedly mistaking him for a monkey. The same week that shooting occurred, an 87-year-old South African man shot and killed a 12-year-old boy he’d mistaken for a monkey who was climbing his guava tree. A month earlier, a 25-year-old South African man was shot and killed by a white hunter who mistook him for a warthog.
As is always the case in such stories, no one ever asks the monkeys, hippos, or warthogs how they feel about being compared to black Africans.
South African Hunter Mistakes Black Woman for Hippo, Shoots It
If you search the name “Ramokone Linah” on Google Images, you’ll see several pictures of hippopotami but zero snapshots of the black South African woman named Ramokone Linah, who was shot by a white Afrikaner because he mistook her for a hippopotamus.
Linah, 38, suffered gunshot wounds in one arm. Her male companion allegedly hid until he was able to notify police and an ambulance.
White South African farm owner Paul Hendrik Van Zyl, 77, was arrested last Tuesday and charged with attempted murder for “firing shots in the direction of the woman,” who’d been fishing with her male partner in a river in the northern section of Limpopo province. Police raided Van Zyl’s farm and seized several firearms during the arrest. Witnesses say they heard Van Zyl tell cops that when he saw Lina and her partner wading through the river, he “mistook them for hippos and monkeys.”
According to a police spokesperson whose African name is so long and unpronounceable you should cut me some slack for not even attempting to type it, “The arrested suspect alleged that he was shooting at the animals.”
Van Zyl was released on a bond of 1,000 rand (about $62) and won’t have to appear in court until May 18. Apparently the life of a black woman who resembles a hippopotamus is a very cheap thing in South Africa.
Sadly — or amusingly, take your pick –, this is not the first time something like this has happened in South Africa. In March of 2017, a farmer in Limpopo province shot and wounded a farmhand with a pellet gun after allegedly mistaking him for a monkey. The same week that shooting occurred, an 87-year-old South African man shot and killed a 12-year-old boy he’d mistaken for a monkey who was climbing his guava tree. A month earlier, a 25-year-old South African man was shot and killed by a white hunter who mistook him for a warthog.
As is always the case in such stories, no one ever asks the monkeys, hippos, or warthogs how they feel about being compared to black Africans.