The Tanzanian Government has reacted to the attack on a Nigerian tourist, Zainab Oladehinde at the Warere Beach Hotel.
Oladehinde had taken to Twitter on Sunday, April 17 to narrate how she was almost raped by a stranger at the hotel in Nungwi, Zanzibar
“Around 12am, a few friends and family called to wish me a happy birthday and then I went back to my room to sleep. A few hours into my sleep, I started to feel a strange hand touching my breasts.
“Now, this was me sleeping naked on my bed in my hotel room with my doors locked. So, this was definitely a dream. I told myself and went back to sleep. Some few minutes afterwards, I started to feel my hands stroking someone’s pen*s.
“At this moment, I opened my eyes to confirm if it was actually a dream or I was in real danger. Lo and behold, it wasn’t a dream. There was a naked man lying on my bed and touching me at 2am in my hotel room!
“He started calling me baby and then I became scared because the room was dark as I had switched off the lights before I went to bed. Now, I was extremely scared.”
“So, I continued begging and telling him I’d allow him have sex with me but he’d need to get a condom so as not to get HIV. I kept on saying HIV whilst crying profusely at this point. As I struggled to not let him strangle me, he left the room and told me he’d be back with a condom.
“Immediately he left, I switched on the light, tried to call the hotel reception but there was no intercom or phone lines to reach the hotel reception. I couldn’t stay back in the room and wait for the rapist to come back.
“I decided it was very unsafe for me to remain in the room. If I’d die, I’d rather die trying to escape rather than let the man come back to attack me a second time. I quickly put some clothes on and left my room barefooted so as not to make noise when I get out.
“On getting outside the room, I wanted to make my way to the reception, but then I saw two security men standing outside by the pool side having a conversation. I wanted to meet them to tell them I had just been attacked by a stranger in my room.
“But I thought to myself, what if this was the person who actually attacked me? Then I became extremely scared because I’d have to find a way to get to the reception without those men seeing me.
“I was crying profusely at this point because I thought I wouldn’t survive this night.
“Almost immediately, I remembered the Russian couple I had spent some time with the day before and I could go to their room to seek refuge. I started crawling on my chest till I got to their room.
“Fortunately for me, the room was opened and I ran inside. They woke up almost immediately and I told the guy, Alex, how I was strangled and almost got raped in my room.
“He advised that I stay in his room till we sort out the issue by daybreak. I called my friend to tell him I was in another room where I felt safe and he told me he had called the hotel owner. This was around 4am in the morning.
“Mussa claimed to have received a phone call around 4am by the hotel’s owner to check for me in my room after my friend called them. He said he didn’t find me in the room, so he went back to bed.
“I told Mussa to call out all the security personnel that were on duty the night before so we’d get the hang of who the culprit was. They all came out. I couldn’t recognize any of them, but I could smell the man that was in my room that midnight.
“The taxi driver arrived and we all left for the police station. When we got to the police station, I was asked to write my statement, which I did. The policemen advised I go to the hospital to do a check-up if I was raped or not.
“They were all speaking Swahili and were asking me questions instead of interrogating the suspects. When I decided to take a picture of the police station and the statement I had written, the policemen started threatening me to delete the pictures.
“I didn’t delete my pictures and videos. Instead, I took more because this was the only weapon I had against them. I started to Google Nigerian embassies in Tanzania. I called all of them, but no one answered
“When the nurse at a hospital I visited confirmed that there was no penetration, the policemen said they had no reason to press charges on sexual assault, adding that the only issue was the stolen money.
“The policemen at the Nungwi police station in Zanzibar kept on bullying and harassing me. They told me to leave the police station that I wasn’t raped. I was so frustrated, sad and scared. How could the police do this to me? How could the hotel do this to me? The owner and manager said I lied about my experience,” she tweeted.
The story sparked outrage on social media as Nigerians took to Google ratings to drop over 4000 negative reviews for the hotel.
Reacting, the Zanzibar Commission for Tourism expressed shock and condemned the incident.
“The Zanzibar Commission for Tourism is shocked and disappointed to learn of this incident and take these allegations very seriously. An immediate investigation has commenced and we will report on its findings. We condemn any harm or threat to our visitors to the peaceful islands of Zanzibar,” the statement read in part.
