Specifically, Sub-Saharan Africa? Now, excuse my title as some of you will scream ignorance but i’m travelling to three countries in East Africa (Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania) around mid-August. Knowing the reputation countries in Africa have for security, I’ve tried to ask people on forums and anecdotal experiences been getting some conflicting information from both sources.
Ironically, one of my friends who has lived in Kenya for a long time told me that it’s highly unsafe not just because of the high crime rate in Nairobi but high corruption so the police would most likely ask for bribes before opening an investigation into a robbery. On the other hand, the foreigners who i know that have traveled there claim things were alright on their trip and apart from being ‘daylight robbed’ because they were white and didn’t speak Swahili with the street vendors, everything was okay.
I’ll definitely not putting of my trip because of any concerns but i just want to know how high i need to raise or lower my paranoia along with keeping tight guard of my electronic devices, cash, and travel documents. I’m sure lots of people here have had bad experiences while travelling to developing countries so share your stories with ‘pleasure’
I lived in West Africa for several years. I was pickpocketed twice - once in Accra and once in Abidjan, and a camera was taken from my house when I left my door unlocked. Total loss less than fifty dollars.
I went out a lot at night and those were the only issues I had. With a modicum of caution, it’s safe there.
I’ve been in almost all of them, and never been scammed once. One lackluster theft attempt in Burundi, but quickly thwarted.
But watch out for Ethiopian Airlines. They made me buy a ticket back into Addis before boarding me for a flight to Djibouti, said it was refundable, then reneged on refund. MasterCard upheld my protest and I got my money back. They also billed my card twice for a flight to Dire Dawa, but corrected it without demur.
In general in Africa, if someone gives you their word, they will honor it. But there are a lot of very poor people there, and theft can be opportunistic, so keep an eye on your stuff.
What location? I stuck to the regions around the Prado and the airport and besides some graffiti I didn’t see anything out of place. I stuck to taxis though and avoided more mass public transportation though if there were more robbery attempts there.
I had no problems in my time in Kenya. My wife had someone in a shop in S. Africa try to use her CC# to buy a bunch of electronics. The owner of the electronics store, also in S. Africa, called her to alert her to the potential fraud.
Sorry, meant to add: my wife was in S. Africa at the time and had used her cc in a shop. One of the employees of that shop stole her number and tried to use it to buy a bunch of electronics (which he would presumably be able to sell quickly for cash).
My brother lived in Tanzania for a while. one bit of advice he had was not to carry stuff in expensive looking bags or briefcases. He lost a load of his research notes that were in a briefcase in his jeep and thereafter carried them in a local style sisal shopping bag so people could see it was just paper.
I was robbed once (and suffered a few thefts) when I lived in Africa but I was there for theee years and it was partly due to my own carelessness, so I wouldn’t draw any general lessons from it. The robbers weren’t armed with anything but fists so I was never in any physical danger.
I think the issue is more that governments are weak than poverty per se. Poor people are actually probably more honest than rich ones, at least that’s what a number of studies suggest. The real issue is that police forces, concealed cameras, police equipment, judiciaries etc cost money, and the lower your GDP / capita the less of those you can afford, and the easier it is for a would be robber or their to get away with it.
But poverty often motivates people to steal, who would otherwise respect private property. A great majority of people, everywhere, are fundamentally honest, but marginal opportunistic crime rises where there are fewer options for an honest living.
Regarding the efficiency of preventative enforcement, people in most third world countries consider the police to be the enemy, and known thieves are often subjected to ad-hoc vigilante justice in the street, rather than any formal concept of constitutional law and order. The poorly-paid police depend on payoffs from residents, to be observant.
Africans themselves are very aware of the daily risk of crime, and are very diligent about crime prevention on their own property. Nobody would ever leave their house unoccupied, even for a few hours, without arranging for a trusted person to keep watch on it, and locking everything up very securely. Windows are barred, and there is broken glass on top of walls. Africa no more nor less than elsewhere in the third world.
I have to laugh, because literally the first person I interacted with in any way in Africa, the visa clerk at Entebbe’s airport, attempted to scam me.
I walked up to the counter. She said the visa fee was $50 (it really was; that wasn’t the scam). I handed her $50, and she put it in the drawer. She shuffled some papers around, looked at my passport, stamped some papers, and before handing them back to me, held out her hand and said that the visa fee was $50.
I said that I had already given her $50. She pretended to not hear/not understand, and her hand was still out. I said, much more loudly: “I already gave you $50. You put it in that drawer right there.” and pointed.
She “checked” the drawer and then made a very-not-convincing show of having “forgotten”, and I got my visa and was on my way.
That was it, though. We were there for almost two weeks, and I encountered no other attempted scams or crimes (or, possibly, the others were so smooth I never noticed).
