Assaulted German tourist leaves Namibia

A GERMAN tourist who was shot at and assaulted on Ondekaremba Lodge near Hosea Kutako airport on Sunday left with his family after about a day in Namibia to return to Germany.

According to Inspector Kauna Shikwambi of the Namibian Police’s Media Liaison Department in Windhoek, the details surrounding the incident are limited as the victim did not want to lay charges.’The victim and his family were rushing out of Namibia after the incident, and did not open a case. Even the owner of the farm did not want to open a case because the victim was not there anymore,’ she told The Namibian.The information available suggests that a group of men wanted to break into the bungalow of the tourists on Sunday morning – less than a day after they arrived from Germany to tour Namibia.A shot was fired at the man – which fortunately did not hit him – and then he was allegedly assaulted with his walking stick in his face and on his head. The gang is said to have fled when people on the premises came out to see what was happening. He was taken to hospital, but did not stay for long. The next day he and his family returned to Germany.’The court procedures in the event of charges and the financial implication that could follow with the traveling from there to Namibia probably played a big role in his decision not to lay charges,’ said Shikwambi.She said the police were summoned to the scene, and looked for cartridges and followed some tracks, but no arrests had been made as of yesterday (Tuesday). It was unknown how many persons were involved in the attack.According to Inge Metzger, who heard of the incident and who lives nearby, it is suspected that it could be the same gang of five ‘which is running around here’. ‘If they catch them and jail them, the judge (whoever it may be) will let them go again on bail. So what rights do we have for a safe life, according to our constitution? A person does not know where to move to. There are no safe places any longer in Namibia,’ she said in a letter to the Chairman of the Kapps Farm Community Committee against Crime Chairman, Brian Black, who informed the newspaper of the incident.The newspaper contacted Ondekaremba Lodge to find out what happened but a Mr. Rust refused to comment. All he said was that security at the lodge would be increased dramatically in the near future, but referred all other queries regarding the attack to the police.Black condemned the ‘on-going cowardly attacks on visitors’ in Namibia and stated that he was deeply disturbed that Namibia is witnessing an increase in ‘cowardly actions such as rising armed robberies, rape of minor children and vulnerable mothers of our nation, theft of and in motor vehicles and other properties, robbery of tourists and even killings as well as frightening fraud and corrupt practices in the land we love so dearly’. ‘On the other hand our law-enforcing agents remain either ineffective or when they finally make an arrest, the criminals are released just the very next day on bail, just to go an commit another crime’.

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