Relaying an experience I came across on a photographic forum. Truly horrendous ordeal, I can't even begin to think what I would do in a similar situation.
Repost below ---
My wife Corinne and I have had an unfortunate incident which I will summarise here. We were five days into a 7 week photographic trip of Africa. On the first leg we were camping at the Okajima/Africat complex about 200kms north of Windhoek in Namibia.
At 3am local time on the 2nd of February our camp was attacked. A group of men with guns and knives pulled all of the 9 people in the group and the 3 guides from our tents and dragged us into the middle of the camp, a few of us were punched and fell and had minor injuries like cut feet. A gunshot was fired in the air. Most of us were half naked and dazed and lights were shined in our eyes. We were robbed of just about everything at knifepoint, money passports, camera gear clothing etc, even took peoples wedding rings. They loaded the Wild Dog tour truck with our gear while we lay face down in a group on the ground, everyone was terrified they would execute us when finished. They started binding us up but decided they didn’t want to waste the time. Then they must have all jumped in our Wild Dog truck and left. They had terrorized us for about 25mins all up.
Corinne found her mobile phone still in our tent, most of the phones had been taken and the head guide rang the boss at Wild Dog to sound the alarm. She rang the main lodge at Okajima to alert them. We huddled together and tried to stop shaking surprised we were actually still alive and started a fire to keep warm as most of us had lost our clothes. After about 25mins a vehicle arrived from the lodge with an armed Guide.
Basically when the sun came up they moved us to the main lodge and the police arrived and took our statements. The lodge people looked after us and accommodated and fed us as none of us had money or passports etc. They put us up in their luxury villa for the night.
The trackers from the lodge found the Wild dog truck abandon and we eventually recovered some possessions, just mostly some clothes and things our attackers didn’t want, but they carried the rest of our gear including my camera backpacks to the road and were picked up by another vehicle and escaped. The police have not caught them as yet and I am not hopeful of getting any of our stuff back.
Corinne and I have now returned home. It took us 5 days to arrange the travel because we had no documents, the dealings with the Namibian government were very difficult, very frustrating when you have all ready been through a traumatic event. Wild Dogs Safaris and our family back home and our travel agent were very supportive of us. Corinne and I have lost all our money we brought for our 7 week Africa holiday, our credit and cash cards, our passports and visas, all my camera equipment, laptop etc. I lost all my images from the first 4 days of the trip of the Dunes of the Namib desert.
So basically I am devastated at this point after planning the trip for so long and so carefully. We have been extremely unlucky. That lodge has operated for 16 years and has never had an armed attack like that before.
I am hoping my insurance will cover most of my losses, cancelled tours, airfares and my camera gear but we had a fair bit of USD on me that was lost and I know we can't claim and also I doubt we can cliam the airfare over and back.
As for lessons learned I don't know what we could have done different to protect ourselves. We were on an arranged tour in a "safe" area with 3 guides. When you are awoken at 3am in the morning and dragged from your tent by multiple guys with guns and knives there is nothing you can do to protect yourself and your wife let alone your camera gear.
Will let you know how I go with the claims.
Thanks for listening.
Brett
Repost below ---
My wife Corinne and I have had an unfortunate incident which I will summarise here. We were five days into a 7 week photographic trip of Africa. On the first leg we were camping at the Okajima/Africat complex about 200kms north of Windhoek in Namibia.
At 3am local time on the 2nd of February our camp was attacked. A group of men with guns and knives pulled all of the 9 people in the group and the 3 guides from our tents and dragged us into the middle of the camp, a few of us were punched and fell and had minor injuries like cut feet. A gunshot was fired in the air. Most of us were half naked and dazed and lights were shined in our eyes. We were robbed of just about everything at knifepoint, money passports, camera gear clothing etc, even took peoples wedding rings. They loaded the Wild Dog tour truck with our gear while we lay face down in a group on the ground, everyone was terrified they would execute us when finished. They started binding us up but decided they didn’t want to waste the time. Then they must have all jumped in our Wild Dog truck and left. They had terrorized us for about 25mins all up.
Corinne found her mobile phone still in our tent, most of the phones had been taken and the head guide rang the boss at Wild Dog to sound the alarm. She rang the main lodge at Okajima to alert them. We huddled together and tried to stop shaking surprised we were actually still alive and started a fire to keep warm as most of us had lost our clothes. After about 25mins a vehicle arrived from the lodge with an armed Guide.
Basically when the sun came up they moved us to the main lodge and the police arrived and took our statements. The lodge people looked after us and accommodated and fed us as none of us had money or passports etc. They put us up in their luxury villa for the night.
The trackers from the lodge found the Wild dog truck abandon and we eventually recovered some possessions, just mostly some clothes and things our attackers didn’t want, but they carried the rest of our gear including my camera backpacks to the road and were picked up by another vehicle and escaped. The police have not caught them as yet and I am not hopeful of getting any of our stuff back.
Corinne and I have now returned home. It took us 5 days to arrange the travel because we had no documents, the dealings with the Namibian government were very difficult, very frustrating when you have all ready been through a traumatic event. Wild Dogs Safaris and our family back home and our travel agent were very supportive of us. Corinne and I have lost all our money we brought for our 7 week Africa holiday, our credit and cash cards, our passports and visas, all my camera equipment, laptop etc. I lost all my images from the first 4 days of the trip of the Dunes of the Namib desert.
So basically I am devastated at this point after planning the trip for so long and so carefully. We have been extremely unlucky. That lodge has operated for 16 years and has never had an armed attack like that before.
I am hoping my insurance will cover most of my losses, cancelled tours, airfares and my camera gear but we had a fair bit of USD on me that was lost and I know we can't claim and also I doubt we can cliam the airfare over and back.
As for lessons learned I don't know what we could have done different to protect ourselves. We were on an arranged tour in a "safe" area with 3 guides. When you are awoken at 3am in the morning and dragged from your tent by multiple guys with guns and knives there is nothing you can do to protect yourself and your wife let alone your camera gear.
Will let you know how I go with the claims.
Thanks for listening.
Brett
