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Van Niekerk and his team mates suffered a severe beating at the hands of the murderous mob of people in the notorious poacher’s town of Corruman in Mozambique. Apart from being whipped brutally over his back, Van Niekerk was also stabbed several times, among others in the back of his neck, his face and his arm. Here a bloodied Van Niekerk is pictured shortly after being rescued. Pictures of the wounds to his face are too graphic for publication. Photo supplied.

Behind enemy lines

Date: 17 October 2016 By: Andries van Zyl

Suddenly they found themselves in a life-and-death situation on foreign soil. From all quarters a murderous mob was converging on them, and were it not for quick forward thinking, 25-year-old Sean van Niekerk from Louis Trichardt and his mates would not have lived to tell their tale.

Sean’s recounting of their ordeal sounds more like part of the script of the 2001 Hollywood blockbuster Black Hawk Down. The film is based on the battle of Mogadishu in Somalia on 3 and 4 October 1993. After a failed mission by a joint American Special Forces operation to capture self-proclaimed president-to-be Mohamed Farrah Aidid, members of Task Force Ranger's team got caught behind enemy lines. The initial operation was planned to take an hour, but became an overnight standoff and rescue operation that left 18 American soldiers dead and 73 wounded. Closer to home, it might as well have been a page out of the book The Wynand du Toit Story. Du Toit, a former South African Special Forces operator, was also captured behind enemy lines by FAPLA soldiers in Angola in May 1985. He and two fellow South African Special Forces operators were deployed into Angola as part of Operation Cabinda. The mission also failed, with only Du Toit surviving.

Although Sean and his mates are not soldiers, they are waging a war - the war against poaching.  He forms part of an elite anti-poaching team funded by the International Anti-Poaching Foundation. They operate in a protective corridor between South-Africa and Mozambique, known as the Greater Lebombo Conservancy. Sean and his team are in charge of two sections of this corridor on the Mozambique side, a 40km-long piece of conservancy known as the Sabie Game Park that stretches from approximately the Sabie River to the Massintonto River, as well as another 8 000ha piece of the corridor nearer to the Massingir Dam.

There is no doubt that Sean and his team are effective. “A year ago, between 17 and 18 groups of poachers were coming into the area. The last four months, we’ve zeroed it. Kruger [Kruger National Park] told us that there has been a 90% decrease in poaching in the two areas we are operating in,” said Sean during an interview with the Zoutpansberger on Monday.

It was business as usual on 1 October for Sean and his team in their endless fight against poachers. Since the unit is so effective in the area, the poachers have started looking at other ways to enter both the conservancy and the KNP. This entails entering through less-controlled pieces of land bordering the areas in which Sean operates.

At around noon, Sean’s team, operating just south of the Corruman Dam, radioed him that they had made contact with a group of three poachers and subsequently managed to arrest one man, while seizing the poacher’s bakkie, two buffalo carcasses and a rifle. At that stage, Sean was in the town of Corruman. “This is a very bad township, known for its hostility towards the anti-poaching unit. A lot of the headmen were poachers themselves,” said Sean.

Sean made his way to the point of arrest, but it was slow going. Roads in the area are treacherous and heavy rains the previous evening made driving even worse. Eventually Sean met up with his extended patrol. Meeting him was teammate Johan du Plessis (28), their Mozambican ranger Filizardo and an armed Mozambican government official. Along the way, Sean picked up another three armed Mozambican government officials for assistance.

Now they had to make their way back to the police station, but to do this, they had to drive through the town of Corruman once more. Apart from the resentment residents of the town have towards members of the anti-poaching unit, there was also already a bad atmosphere in the town because of the damage residents had suffered during the previous evening’s rainstorm. “Because the roads are bad, we had to try different routes to get to the police station. I had a 4x4, but the poacher’s vehicle [being driven by the government officials] was a 2x4. That was a bit of a problem … At this stage, the poacher was on the other vehicle, not on my vehicle, and he managed to escape from that vehicle,” said Sean.

Seeing that the man had jumped from the bakkie, Sean parked his bakkie and asked two government officials to look after it. He then proceeded to chase down the fleeing suspect through the shacks and narrow alleyways in the town.

Sean managed to chase down the suspect, re-arrest him and hand him back to the government officials. “We were walking back to our vehicles to climb in and get going again. That was where the mob kind of started up. They’d seen us driving in there and they’d seen we’d arrested a poacher. A few warning shots were fired when the guy escaped, so that made matters worse and worked everyone up,” said Sean.

The angry mob started making their way to Sean and his team. “I called my team in and told them to just stay together and move towards the vehicles,” said Sean. At that stage, they were about 40 metres away from their vehicles. “While they were coming towards us, the Mozambican officials became very nervous and started to retreat, so we retreated with them,” said Sean.

Suddenly, stones and bottles were hurled at Sean and his team. “The team and I started running towards the military base inside the town,” said Sean. The safety of the base was, however, two-and-a-half to three kilometres away. “I often told them ‘Stop, stay together, we can fight our way through this!’ But they [government officials] just carried on heading for the military base,” said Sean. Realizing the desperate situation facing them, Sean radioed their base for support, asking them to send a helicopter to come and pick them up. The helicopter is stationed at their base.

Sean, Johan and Filizaro got separated from the four government officials. “They were more concerned with us anti-poaching guys than with the government officials … As me moved, the mob got bigger and bigger. Because we were now in a township, every direction we went in, more and more people joined the mob, blocking us in every direction,” said Sean. By that time, realizing the impending danger and in an effort to try and defuse the situation, the government officials had already let the poacher go. This, however, did not change Sean’s predicament.

While running towards the safety of the military base, Sean and his team faced another dilemma. “As we were running, we were moving into more built-up areas. The chopper can’t get to you and the mob is getting bigger … Eventually Johan and I, along with the ranger, decided that we must now face what was coming, because they were going to get us,” said Sean. Part of their decision to stop was also to remain in an area where the chopper could get to them. They were still about a kilometre away from the military base. Luckily for them, Sean's base confirmed that the chopper was already in the air and on its way to them "We just had to stay alive until the chopper got to us,” said Sean.

The mob was on them in a flash. “From there, it was just a full-on fight. I was hit over the head with something like a machete … I don’t really know. I was also stabbed in the back of my neck with a broken bottle,” said Sean. Several rocks also hit his face and he was severely whipped across his back. One attacker tried to stab him with a knife in his ribcage, but fortunately Sean managed to ward off this potentially fatal wound by blocking the knife with his elbow. “Johan also got a big gash to the forehead … they worked a lot on his body and his legs. He got a fractured rib and lots of other bruises … Every time we got knocked down, we would try and stand up. But when you would get to your knees, they would knock you down again. All they wanted us to do was to lie down … either to whip us or kills us … I don’t know. We just kept on trying to stand and defend ourselves as much as we could,” said Sean. He added that the only thing going through his mind at that stage was to stay alive until the chopper came. “I knew that we could die, but I also knew the chopper was coming … there was lots of blood, but I just told myself 'the chopper is coming, the chopper is coming!'” said Sean.

Suddenly Sean was hit against the head. “I think it was a rock … I went down, the lights went out and sound went out. As it was going out, it started coming back again, and as it came back I heard the chopper,” said Sean.

By then the whole town of Corruman was up in arms, with some residents even protesting outside the military base where the four Mozambican officials had found refuge. It was virtually impossible for the chopper to land. “As I heard the chopper, the mob just kind of took two or three steps back and left us. When they left us, another individual in civilian clothes appeared and came and stood next to me with an AK47. He just said ‘It’s okay. I am police.’ But the mob still wanted to come. Now and then a stone would come, hitting us,” said Sean.

Realizing that the chopper pilot did not know were he was, Sean reached for his radio. By that time the radio’s adjustment knobs were missing and the screen broken. “I just pushed in the receiver and shouted to the chopper to turn around. Somehow, they heard me over the radio and they turned around,” said Sean. He then guided the chopper to where they lay, severely injured.

As the chopper landed, Sean and Johan were still able to board it on their own steam. There was only space for two. “As the pilot took off, I told him that Filizaro was still down there,” said Sean. The pilot dropped off Sean and Johan a few kilometres away from the rowdy mob and returned to rescue Filizaro. He had also sustained severe cuts and bruises, as well as a broken wrist.

The three injured team mates were taken to the MediClinic in Nelspruit. Sean spent two days in the ICU and another two days in a general ward. He returned to his Louis Trichardt home last Thursday to recover.

Sean has no doubt that they would have been killed if the chopper had not arrived in time. Yet, he is already making plans to go back to Mozambique. “I have another scan in a month, and if I am all clear, I am definitely going back. Not one of us guys who work there feels sorry for himself. We are there because we want to be there. We enjoy what are are doing because we know we are making a difference. It’s not everybody who is willing to go work on the Mozambiquan side, so we know it’s where we can make a difference. We’re a nice young team that works there. We’ve accomplished so much in a very short time, with a lot of help from donors. We are going back. The job is not done. There are more animals to save,” said Sean.

 
 
 

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Andries van Zyl

Andries joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in April 1993 as a darkroom assistant. Within a couple of months he moved over to the production side of the newspaper and eventually doubled as a reporter. In 1995 he left the newspaper group and travelled overseas for a couple of months. In 1996, Andries rejoined the Zoutpansberger as a reporter. In August 2002, he was appointed as News Editor of the Zoutpansberger, a position he holds until today.

 
 

More photos... 

Lucky to be alive, but itching to go back … Sean van Niekerk (25) pictured at his Louis Trichardt home while recovering from his injuries. The stitches above his eyebrow were caused by an object, probable a stone, that hit him, causing him to lose consciousness and fall to the ground. Within seconds of coming round again, he heard the chopper approaching, which ultimately led to their rescue.

Van Niekerk’s Mozambican ranger, Filizaro, also sustained severe cuts and bruises, as well as a broken wrist, during the attack on them. Photo: Facebook.

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