Before Zainab Oladehinde shared the horrors she endured on her 23rd birthday last year, Warere Beach Hotel was the crown jewel of Zanzibar’s holiday accommodation offerings.
Nigerian solo traveller lifts the lid on horror trip to Zanzibar
A year after she took the brave decision to spend her 23rd birthday on an adventure to Zanzibar, an island situated on the coast of Unguja, Tanzania, Oladehinde, a Nigerian traveller, found the courage to revisit the horrific ordeal she allegedly experienced at Warere Beach Hotel.
According to Oladehinde, she arrived at the 4-star beach hotel on 16 April 2021, after a long-haul flight that had a lay-over in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
She was exhausted and, understandably, jet-lagged. So, her first day on the island was spent resting. The next day, Oladehinde explored the hotel.
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It was all part of her itinerary. She was going to spend the day before her birthday using Warere Beach Hotel’s facilities and kick off the ‘touristy’ part of her six-day trip from 18 April 2021, the day she was born.
However, what was supposed to be the most rewarding experience turned into an absolute horror. On 17 April 2021, Oladehinde spent time at the hotel’s swimming pool, and she took a stroll at the beach where she met a Russian couple.
‘I mingled with some Russian couples who were also lodged at the hotel and by evening time, I was already in full birthday mode as it was just a few hours to my birthday,” she tweeted.
The ‘happy birthday’ calls from her family and friends flooded her phone before she called it a night at around 00:00, but her sleep would be rocked by the most devastating ordeal.
At some point in her sleep, Oladehinde alleges she felt the hand of a man touch her breast. At first, the 23-year-old, who was in a deep state of sleep at around 02:00, brushed this off as a dream but things got real when she felt a man’s private parts in her hand.
“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 revealed.
Oladehinde details the alleged horrors she suffered in the thread below but, in a nutshell, the only reason she survived a near-brush with sexual assault, let alone death, was her use of HIV as a means to scare her attacker away from penetrating her without a condom.
It’s high time I told my horrible experience in Zanzibar as a young solo female traveler.
— Zainab Oladehinde (@zainabdehinde) April 16, 2022
This incident happened a year ago in April of 2021 but I haven’t been able to talk about it cause I’ve been in therapy for a year to heal from the psychological trauma as this experience
Is Warere Beach Hotel safe for travellers?
Oladehinde’s ordeal went further than the scariest night of her life at Warere Beach Hotel. The police station she reported the incident at heckled her for documenting her case. In the end, a rape kit was used to confirm she was never raped but police in Nungwi had refused to assist the female traveller, claiming she was making a huge deal out of nothing.
The police men at the Nungwi police station in Zanzibar kept on bullying and harassing me. Told me to leave their police station that I wasn’t raped and they had confirmed there was no penetration from the nurses.
— Zainab Oladehinde (@zainabdehinde) April 16, 2022
45 pic.twitter.com/64d4KXn39k
This is despite the fact that witnesses, like the Russian couple, corroborated her story and, much worse, Oladehinde was strangled and $1 100 (est. R16 185) was stolen from her handbag.
This is Alex. One of the Russian couple narrating how I ran into his their room to seek refuge in the middle of the night when the security men at WARERE BEACH HOTEL NUNGWI ZANZIBAR TANZANIA busted into my room.
— Zainab Oladehinde (@zainabdehinde) April 16, 2022
47 pic.twitter.com/HXuxgrfrPk
Moreover, police commander Martin Otieno from North Unguja dismissed Oladehinde’s nightmare as a money grab, questioning the traveller’s decision in revealing the details of her horror a year later.
The Nigerian female traveller has also been criticised by Zanzibar officials for seeking $10 000 (est. R147 146) in punitive damages for the traumatic experience.
However, since Oladehinde published the thread, more travellers who had stayed at Warere Beach Hotel surfaced with similar experiences.
For instance, a TripAdvisor user who’d stayed at Warere Beach Hotel in December 2021 couldn’t wait to check out after realising some of their belongings were stolen.
Warere Beach Hotel has, since Oladehinde’s viral thread, released a statement vehemently denying all allegations levelled against them.
Here’s what the hotel said:
