A 64-year-old US tourist from New Mexico, Juliana Gle Tourneau, has been reportedly killed in an elephant attack during a safari drive in Zambia.

According to a police statement released on Saturday, the tragic incident happened on Wednesday when an elephant dragged the victim out of a vehicle and trampled her to death.

The police statement said Ms. Tourneau was with a group that had stopped near the Maramba Cultural Bridge in Livingstone due to traffic from an elephant herd, when one of the animals attacked.

“Juliana Gle Tourneau, 64, of New Mexico, United States of America, died on Wednesday around 17.50 after being knocked from a parked vehicle which had stopped due to traffic caused by elephants around the Maramba Cultural Bridge,” Southern Province Police Commissioner, Auxensio Daka, told Zambian national broadcaster, ZNBC.

“She was part of a group that had stopped near the Maramba Cultural Bridge due to the traffic caused by the elephant herd near the bridge.”

This is the second of such attack this year after another American tourist, Gail Mattson, a 79-year-old female tourist from Minnesota, was killed in March during a game drive in a Zambian National Park when an elephant charged at their truck, flipped it over and killed Mattson and injured five others.

As a result of the incident, Zambian authorities have called on tourists to exercise extreme caution while observing wildlife around the country.

It was a victory for advocates of LGBTQ+ after a Namibia High Court on Friday, overturned a colonial law that criminalised gay sex in the country after same-sex campaigners had suffered a number of setbacks in the battle for their rights in recent years.

Namibia had inherited the law banning “sodomy” and “unnatural offences” when it gained independence from South Africa in 1990, and while the ban was rarely enforced, activists said it contributed to discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, including violence by the police.

Friedel Dausab, a Namibian LGBTQ+ activist who instituted the case with support from the UK-based Human Dignity Trust, addressed journalists on the rare court ruling, saying:

“I feel elated. I’m so happy. This really is a landmark judgment, not just for me, but for our democracy.

“I’m sitting next to my mum and we’re hoping that this message filters through to all families, so that kids are no longer estranged. It’s a great day for Namibia. It won’t be a crime to love anymore.”

The judgment which was made by three high court judges, said the laws amounted to unfair discrimination under Namibia’s constitution, noting that the same consensual sexual conduct was not criminalised if it was between a man and a woman.

“What threat does a gay man pose to society, and who must be protected against him?” the lead judge said while delivering judgment.

“We are of the firm view that the enforcement of private moral views of a section of a community (even if they form the majority of that community), which are based to a large extent on nothing more than prejudice, cannot qualify as such a legitimate purpose.”

Over the years, gay rights activists have argued that although prosecutions under the “sodomy” and “unnatural sexual offences” laws were infrequent, these laws have fostered ongoing discrimination against the LGBTQ community and instilled fear of arrest among gay men.

Though Namibia inherited the laws when it gained independence from South Africa in 1990, South Africa has since decriminalised same-sex sexual activity and is the only country on the African continent to allow LGBTQ couples to adopt children, marry and enter civil unions.