Originally Posted by
NoelEvans
Originally Posted by
Pilot DAR
Posts which are on topic, non political, and non racist are welcomed to continue this discussion. Statistics and opinions about local culture are not helping.
Thank you, one of your moderators....
For a like-for-like assessment of the safety in different countries, have a close look at that link above, then go onto the
https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice website and see the updated assessments of other countries. Start with all South Africa's direct neighbours: Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Eswatini and Lesotho. Compare the Safety and Security section in each with what you read about South Africa. Then look around the world a bit more: Canada, USA (someone tried comparing the USA with SA -- just look at the vastly different advice on the two here), Australia and New Zealand. Then scale up your caution for any necessary visits to South Africa accordingly. And if your visit is not necessary (
e.g. not for work/business), probably best for your own safety to avoid going there. This poor guy that this Post is all about would have been massively traumatised. What he went through was
not unusual (
I know of people who have been through similar there, although not as extreme). Do you
really need to put yourself at risk of the same?
My last visit there several years ago I was fetched by family from the airport (at night) and there was a discussion between them on the route that we were going to take 'home', was it to be on the motorway ('freeway') bypass or into town. I thought they might be wanting to show me something in town. No, it turned out that there had been a lot of hijackings on a 'remote' part of the motorway and that all the different police forces (national, municipal, traffic) had been finding excuses why it was not their 'jurisdiction'. We went through town... That was in the first half an hour in the country off the airport! Added to other crime concerns (high security fences around homes, steel gates on doors,
etc., etc., etc.) during my short family visit, I have not been back and will not do so, simply due to the fact that I felt very, very unsafe there. I heard it put into context very well by one family member there: "South Africa is the only country where the good people are behind bars (all their household security) and the criminals are roaming the streets freely".
Sad. But true.