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Thursday Jun 14, 2007

When breaking news is a little too local

There's no way I can write an upbeat entry today, but a lot of things have happened. The mother of two friends of ours has been seriously ill; it had seemed like she was in remission then they left a couple of weeks ago to be with her because the doctors weren't sure how long she would last. They don't have the facilities to deal with cancer patients in Lüderitz so she was being treated in the capital. She died the night before last. Her son's 18 and her daughter's 16.

That was coupled with the news that last night a friend of ours was shot dead in his garage. It appears his house was being broken into and he surprised the burglar when he came in, though we're not sure of the facts yet. He was young, in his early 40s at most, and he leaves behind a wife and two children. It was so unexpected it's surreal, I saw him just yesterday. We weren't really close or anything but he's someone we see around all the time, he's always friendly to me, Bozena and Marcel; he'd jokingly invite us as 'the guests of honour' to events he wanted us to cover for the paper.

Which makes it all the more surreal – as local news goes, you can't get much more local than a friend who died a couple of streets away from you. I don't know how to go about writing a piece on this for the paper; we've had calls from the national press asking for more information, and it seems strange that what would usually be a sensational story is actually something that affects us personally. I can't believe I was at the police station yesterday, going through the crime log and bemoaning what a 'slow' month it had been.

If I was in England, I could be more confident that the murderer would be caught and brought to justice, but things are different here. In the First World the combination of massive CCTV coverage and modern forensics units make almost any crime solvable; although the richer areas of Lüderitz sometimes seem just like Europe, in some essential matters Namibia is very much a Third World country. The police here don't have forensics units; they don't even have cameras, or phones that can reach outside the Karas region, for God's sake. I just hope that they manage to track down whoever did this.

The higher amount of violent attacks in Namibia as a whole acts as another reminder that you're in Africa, when sometimes the rich suburbs and luxurious hotels allow you to forget. Perhaps I'm generalising, but I'm willing to bet that knife-point muggings end in a stabbing much more often here than in England. A combination of less effective law enforcement (and so less fear of consequences) and considerably more severe poverty means that criminals are frequently desperate enough to turn to violence. A friend of mine who lives in Windhoek was stabbed three times when he refused to hand over his mobile. The attacker obviously thought it was worth risking 10 years in prison for the N$500 (just under £40) he could get for the phone.

Me, Bozena and Marcel were talking about how easy it is for someone's world to fall down around them, and it made me appreciate more than ever how lucky I am to have my family and friends. My heart goes out to everyone involved – but at times like this is it wrong to admit that you're thankful with every fibre of your being that it didn't happen to you?

Posted by Lucy Hayes ( 6:36 PM )
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