Namibia: Uncertainty Over Number of Tourists Missing At Fish River Canyon

THE number of tourists that went missing in the Fish Canyon remains a mystery, even as ground searches intensify.

Authorities say 10 people entered the canyon as a group and six of them exited the area but did not register with Namibia Wildlife Resorts (NWR) that they had left.

It is also unclear whether the other four from the group had exited the canyon without registering their departure or whether they are missing along with a South African couple who entered the area privately and were not part of a group.

The tourism ministry executive director Theo Nghitila suspects that the four tourists also did not sign out and could have left the country, and are not missing.

“Definitely those ones should probably have left the country already. It’s the older [South African] couple that has given a distress signal that they are sort of lost. I have been informed that we have dispatched a team to go look for them,” he said.

NWR spokesperson Nelson Ashipala confirmed that their team is on the ground.

“We have divided the teams in two. One team is searching from the entry point and the other team is searching from the exit point,” he said.

Ashipala urges all tourists and hikers that end their journey in the canyon to clock out at the Ai-Ais Hotsprings Resort before continuing to their respective destinations.

He could not confirm the identities of the missing.

Marshal ranger Sean Naude’s team is also on the ground.

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