Lioness kills five-year-old boy in Gujarat’s Amreli

A five-year-old boy was killed after being attacked by a lioness in Gujarat’s Amreli district, a forest official said on Wednesday (March 11, 2026). 

The incident occurred on Tuesday (March 10, 2026) evening in Manavav village in Dhari taluka when the animal attacked the child, the son of a farm labourer from Madhya Pradesh, near a settlement.

Forest department officials said villagers raised an alarm on seeing the attack, prompting the lioness to abandon the injured child and flee into the surrounding area.

The severely injured boy was taken to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared him dead.

Forest officials launched a search operation and deployed three teams to track the animal. The lioness was later captured in a cage late on Tuesday (March 10, 2026) night, a forest official said.

Gujarat is the only natural habitat of the Asiatic lion. According to the 2025 lion census conducted in May, the big cats have expanded their presence beyond the Gir National Park into 11 districts of the Saurashtra region, including Amreli, with several sightings reported in non-forested and coastal areas.