Giang Thi Diep, one of two witnesses, said the incident happened on Thursday afternoon when she, Nguyen Thi Tram and Pham Thi Ngan were collecting fallen coffee seeds at a farm belonging to Pham Ngoc Thanh in H’drat Village, Buon Ma Thuot Town.

They scampered up trees when they were attacked by dogs on the farm, but they managed to pull Ngan down, Diep said.

While the 55-year-old woman was struggling with the dogs, a man only identified as Son, who managed the dogs and the farm, appeared on a motorbike, but left without offering Ngan any help despite her begging for it, according to Diep.

“I appealed to him: ‘Please help her, the dogs are attacking her’, but he ignored me,” Diep said, adding that she then tried to call others for help, but failed. Around 30 minutes later, Son returned to the site to call the dogs back, she said.

When he found out that Ngan was dead, Son called someone to inform about the incident and then left, she noted.

“Her body was torn up, so we had to ask (forensic specialists) to restore part of it before burial,” said Pham Van Ngan, Ngan’s brother.

Thanh, the farm owner, said the accident was “undesirable”.

“We have warned [about the dogs] many times but they didn’t understand and kept going into our farm. Dogs are animals so it’s understandable for them to bite human.”

Thanh claimed he had put up signboards warning of fierce dogs before the accident.

But Mai Thanh Chien, who lives near the farm, said the signboards weren’t erected until Friday. He said local people often collected coffee seeds from Thanh’s farm, because many were scattered there without collecting.

Nguyen Huu Quang, chairman of the Ea Kao Commune where H’drat village is located, said Thanh had paid the victim’s family VND120 million (US$6,495) for her burial. Related agencies will take over the case, he added.

Y Se Hmok, a policeman of H’drat, said Thanh’s dogs had attacked several people before, including a 67-year-old woman who was sent to the hospital about two years ago.

Under Article No.102 of the Criminal Code, people with capacity to help others who are in danger but fail to do so, leading to their death, can receive jail sentences of up to five years, said lawyer Truong Xuan Tam from Bar Association in the southern province of Ba Ria – Vung Tau.

Source: Thanh Nien, Tuoi Tre