Boy visited gran and by no means got here residence after being mauled by a lion within the kitchen

When Kristian Prinsloo’s parents waved him off to stay with his gran, they could never have anticipated the horror that would follow.

The 12-year-old schoolboy had been excited about the visit to Ellisras, South Africa, but it wasn’t long before tragedy struck. Kristian’s gran, Marie Strydom took him to visit her friends, Cor and Alet Vos who owned a farm and three lions.

The big cats were hand-reared and supposedly tame but were kept in cages on their estate in Lephalale in the north-eastern Limpopo province.

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But it was the day after Kristian’s 12th birthday when he and his gran were in the kitchen, they hadn’t noticed one of the beasts had escaped from its cage and had stalked into the house.

Once they saw the three-year-old animal, they were initially frozen with fear before it lunged.

Kristian’s father Herman told reporters at the time: “My mother-in-law told Kristan to hide in the bedroom.

“He ran and the lion grabbed him from behind by the neck.”

Marie tried in vain to wrestle the lion off Kristian, laying on top of him to protect him, suffering bites and scratches in the process.

But the youngster suffered damage to his vertebrae and was left in a critical condition with no brain activity before he died in hospital three weeks later in 2017.

In a heartbreaking post on Facebook, Kristian’s dad, Herman wrote: “Love you my son.”

The family did not wish for the lion to be put down.

The story was retold in a YouTube video posted earlier this week by Final Affliction, attracting reams of comments.

One said: “People need to understand this! There’s no such thing as a pet lion, a pet tiger, a pet jaguar, a leopard, a bear, or any other wild animals! If you continue to do this, more people will be dying.”

Another wrote: “Terrifying. Leave lions alone in their natural habitat. They’re not meant to be around humans, and definitely not in their houses! RIP Kristian.”

While one added: “Some people just think they’re ‘gifted.’

“They think they’re some kind of really compassionate person that can bond with animals. They’re just too prideful and stubborn to realize that there is no such thing, that the moment they stop feeding their ‘pets’ or look at them the wrong way, they’ll just be lunch, and only then will they realize that they’re wild animals and not pets.”

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