How I was almost raped on my birthday in Zanzibar- Tweep Zainab

A tweep, Zainab Oladehinde, narrates how she was almost raped in her hotel room in Zanzibar, Tanzania.

Oladehinde, on her Twitter page, also shared videos and photos to back up her story.

She wrote, “it’s high time I told my horrible experience in Zanzibar as a young solo female traveler”.

She said this incident happened a year ago, but she hasn’t been able to talk about it because she has been in therapy as she was healing from psychological trauma.

“On the 15th of April 2021, I flew from Lagos, Nigeria to Zanzibar, Tanzania for my 23rd birthday and I was extremely excited about it. I had my reservations about going to a foreign country as a solo female traveler, but none of my thoughts would have prepared me for what I eventually witnessed and experienced in Tanzania.”

She revealed the 2-day flight had a one day transit time in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia but she arrived at her hotel where she booked a 6night accommodation.

“At around 12am, a few friends and family called to wish me a happy birthday and then I went back to sleep. Few hours into my sleep, I felt a strange hand touching my breast.” Now, this was me sleeping naked on my bed in my hotel room with my doors locked, so this was definitely a dream. I told myself and went back to sleep.”

“Some few minutes afterwards, I felt my hands stroking someone’s p*nis. At this moment, I opened my eyes to confirm if it was actually a dream or I was in real danger. Low and behold, it wasn’t a dream. There was a naked man lying on my bed and touching me at 2am in my hotel room! He started calling me baby and then I became scared cause the room was dark as I had switched off the lights before I went to bed.”

She described how the stranger wanted to force himself on her, but she had to lie that she had HIV so he could leave her alone, especially as he couldn’t understand English but was speaking Swahili to her. She noticed that at the mention of HIV he paused, so she kept mentioning it whilst crying, telling him to go get a condom, which he agreed to and immediately he left, she ran out of her room to go call for help.

She reported to the police the next day even though the hotel manager and owner, who she called, hadn’t reached out to her yet. She was asked to write a statement and advised that she goes to a hospital for a checkup. She also stated that they were asking her questions instead of interrogating the suspects “When I decided to take a picture of the police station and the statement I had written, the policemen started shouting at me and threatening me to delete the pictures I have, I stood my ground and said I wouldn’t delete any picture.”

“When we got to the hospital, the nurse confirmed that there was no penetration. I got back to the police station, and the policemen said they have no issue for the sexual assault since I wasn’t raped. That’s the only issue here was my stolen money”

Credit: Twitter | zainabdehinde