The BBC reports that a pastor has been killed by a crocodile while baptizing people in a lake in southern Ethiopia. 

According to the news service, Pastor Docho Eshete was in the middle of conducting a mass baptism in Lake Abaya when tragedy struck. 

"He baptised the first person and he passed on to another one. All of a sudden, a crocodile jumped out of the lake and grabbed the pastor," local resident Ketema Kairo told the BBC.

The pastor suffered bites to his legs, back and hands.  Fishermen managed to use their nets to stop the crocodile from dragging his body into the lake but the pastor died as a result of his injuries.

According to USA Today, policeman Eiwnetu Kanko said: "They only managed to get his dead body.  They were unable to save him."

Lake Abaya is situated in the Arba Minch area around 300 miles south of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

The Daily Telegraph said crocodiles in Lake Abaya had a reputation for being aggressive to human beings as a result of overfishing that has affected their normal food supply.  

Last month, Zimbabwe resident Zanele Ndlovu, 25, nearly died when a crocodile attacked her and ripped off her arm just five days before she was due to walk down the aisle with her British fiancé, Jamie Fox, 27. Despite losing her arm in the attack, the couple went ahead with their wedding as planned.

Reflecting on her terrifying brush with death, Ndlovu told the BBC that it would be an adjustment but she was remaining positive.

"I am more positive now than I've always been. It kind of changed my life, in the sense of I almost died," she said. 

She also said: "Life is unpredictable. You know when they say when you make plans, God laughs? That makes so much more sense to me now."