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'I believed robbers would shoot me'


By Sarah Rollo

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A MORAY academic has described how he watched helplessly as armed Guatemalan robbers dragged two women into woodland and subjected them to a vicious sexual attack.

Alastair Mitchell
Alastair Mitchell

Alastair Mitchell (58) claimed he, and others around him, were ambushed in broad daylight on his third day in the central American country, where he had travelled to carry out humanitarian work.

Tied by his wrists and ankles and forced to his knees, a loaded gun was held at the back of his head as the men allegedly stole whatever they could before raping the women within earshot.

“I could hear them begging for mercy; weeping and crying. There was nothing I could do, I couldn’t move,” said Mr Mitchell, who lives in Lossiemouth and works as a history teaching assistant at Aberdeen University.

“I really did believe that we would all be shot. I was looking at a little leaf on the ground and thinking ‘that is the last thing I am going to see on earth’.

“I was just like that, waiting for them. But I was so angry and so outraged, and I felt so much contempt for these two individuals, that it kind of pushed out all of the fear. I knew, for the first time in my life, that I could kill. If I had a gun, I would have shot them, or tried to anyway.”

Having travelled to the country to develop an English language programme at a state school, as well as bringing clean water to the building, he had researched its dangers. But he never dreamt he would stare death in its face.

According to the Foreign Office, Guatemala has one of the highest violent crime rates in Latin America with around 40 murders a week in Guatemala City alone, and a total of 98 per week in the whole country.

Although the majority of serious crime involves local gangs, incidents are usually indiscriminate. The risk of violent crime, such as armed attacks, muggings and sexual assault is real.

“We were robbed of anything they could possibly rob us of, obviously things like money, but watches, earrings, rings; everything.

“The one guarding down my end of the line took the bullets out of the casing to show me it was loaded and then put them back in, put the gun to the back of my head, and cocked it. For every second that it lasted, I honestly believed we would die,” Mr Mitchell said.

After about 40 minutes, the gunmen made their getaway and the terrified victims fled to find help, traumatised but alive.

Staff at the local police station were “absolutely useless”, he said, and it was only when embassies became involved that statements were taken and forensic examinations carried out.

Two men were later jailed but released after just a few months when DNA testing failed to match. “I stayed,” said Mr Mitchell, determined not to allow two “little guys with guns” to dictate his life.

“Afterwards, I re-lived it over, and over, and over again in my mind, and this time I had a gun. How would it have played out?

“I had lots of conversations with people about whether or not I should carry a gun because gun carrying is so common, nearly everyone has one. But in the end I decided it was probably best not to.”

On top of the ordeal, he was pick-pocketed, had his credit card cloned, felt the tremor of six earthquakes, and watched a volcano erupt.

But halfway through his planned stay in Central America, it was health concerns that eventually forced him home.

Having already endured a fever, and associated hallucinations, he was hiking in the Mayan area in the western Highlands of the country, escorted by an ex-revolutionary soldier, when he came down with dysentery – suffering severe diarrhoea, stomach cramps, and chronic abdominal pain.

“I had to walk 60 miles to get to a hospital, where I ended up with 12 saline drips fitted to me. It just felt like I was fading away.

For full story, see Friday's Northern Scot.


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