Farmworker mistaken for poacher

Farmworker mistaken for poacherShot twice by anti-poaching unit An innocent farmworker on his way to a cattle post was shot after being mistaken for a poacher in the Outjo district on Wednesday. JANA-MARI SMITH



A farmworker is being treated for two gunshot wounds at a Windhoek hospital after he was shot twice on Wednesday in the Outjo district by members of an anti-poaching unit who mistook him for one of three suspected rhino poachers that were being tracked.

The police yesterday admitted that the shooting was a case of mistaken identity.

Johannes Haneb (55) an employee on farm Trocadero, told Namibian Sun that he was on his way to a cattle post as instructed by his employer, when he noticed a vehicle approaching on the Outjo-Okaukuejo road.

Haneb was carrying a panga, a tool he uses for numerous jobs on the farm.

Haneb said he was frightened when he saw the armed men getting out of the car and fled into the veld.

“I thought they were people who were trying to kill me. They were chasing me … I ran and I quickly jumped over a fence. That is when they started shooting,” he said in an interview at the hospital yesterday.

He was hit in the right arm near his elbow and another bullet pierced his shoulder. “There was a lot of blood, it was spraying from the front where the bullet came out,” he said.

Haneb said he intended pressing charges against the men who shot him.

Hans Menzle, owner of the farm Trocadero and Haneb’s longtime employer, expressed shock at the incident.

“The question is, how do you stop a man next to the road and without asking questions, you just start shooting? He was innocent. I am very unhappy about the entire incident,” Menzle told our sister publication Republikein yesterday.

Haneb is in a stable condition and was described as “very lucky” that no major organs or arteries were hit.

On Wednesday, NamPol Major-General James Tjivikua said in a press statement that a suspected poacher had been shot at a farm in the Outjo district after he tried to flee from an anti-poaching unit.

“The team tried to stop the suspected poacher by firing warning shots but failed to do so. The suspected poacher continued running and holding on his panga. He was eventually shot and wounded,” the statement read.

Yesterday, Tjivikua referred all questions about the incident to Deputy Commissioner Deon Marais, who works closely with anti-poaching teams.

Marais said the anti-poaching unit, consisting of police officers and rangers of the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, had been contacted on Tuesday by a farmer in the area, whose own tracking team had discovered the footprints of three men in an area where valuable rhinos were.

It was suspected that the tracks belonged to a group of armed poachers and the farmer requested reinforcements.

The anti-poaching unit was sent to help track the suspected poachers, who had been spotted from a distance on Tuesday.

Warning shots were fired and the suspected poachers dropped the equipment they had with them but fled with their weapons, a farmer in the area said.

Marais said that on Wednesday, when the tracking of the suspects resumed, one unit spotted Haneb walking along the road. Unbeknownst to them, he was an innocent farmworker on his way to inspect a cattle post.

Marais said Haneb was shot when they tried to arrest him. After he was shot, the team realised that he was not one of the suspects.

Haneb lives on the farm Trocadero with his wife, and is the father of five children.

None of the suspects have been arrested to date.