There's a story making the rounds about a Zion Christian Church prophet by the name of Alec Ndiwane who supposedly charged a lion in South Africa's Kruger National Park. According to several news reports 'Prophet Alec Ndiwane' (who is based in the Pretoria Soshanguve) got out of the car during a visit to the park and charged the lions. They in turn attacked him and so park staff had to shoot in the air to chase the lions away. The poor prophet had to be hospitalized and underwent surgery but fortunately survived.
Initially we were skeptical about the veracity of the story since we first picked it up on Celebtricity, a site know for posting fake or made up news to generate social media traffic. Investigating the source of the photo they ran with the story seemed to confirm our suspicion: it was actually a photo of Kevin Richardson, also known as 'The Lion Whisperer'.
Original photo: lionwhisperer.co.za
The same photo was also used in several other versions of the story on African news websites:
The Southern Daily HTML Version
A ZCC Prophet was nearly killed by a pride of lions in South Africa's Kruger National Park on Saturday after he charged at them to prove the strength of the holy spirit. The lions called his bluff and attacked him, almost killing me.
Lion nearly killed prophet after botched miracle
World News of Tuesday, 8 March 2016 Source: adomonline.com A Zion Christian Church prophet who was filled with the Holy Spirit recently 'challenged' a lion to do battle in the Kruger National Park. Prophet Alec Ndiwane who is based in the Pretoria Soshanguve was with fellow church members in the Kruger National Park where they were watching animals.
Then again, there were also versions of the story without the photo, so maybe the events did happen as described in the articles:
Prophet Challenges a Lion
A Zion Christian Church prophet who was filled with "the spirit" recently 'challenged' a lion to do battle in the Kruger National Park. Prophet Alec Ndiwane who is based in the Pretoria Soshanguve was with fellow church members in the Kruger National Park where they were watching animals.
And to make it even weirder, we found a different story about a different lion attack in another country... using a photo from the same set:
Updated: Man attacked & killed by three lions in Kariba
An employee with Somabula Safaris was attacked and killed by three lions on Friday while docking the company house boat in Matusadonha. In a statement, Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority board chairman Alvin Ncube said soon after the incident, the Matusadonha field station deployed some rangers who killed two of the lions while the third one is currently being tracked down.
There is no mention of the story on the news page of the Kruger National Park, but we have reached for confirmation and will update this article if we hear back from them. But we can already confidently say the photo is a hoax.
