Ontario man's trip to South Africa turned into a nightmare

A Newmarket man and his two teenage children traveled to South Africa hoping to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, but according to the man, their trip turned into a nightmare after he and his family were kidnapped. They were harassed and received death threats and everything they owned was stolen. On December 17, Sean Stephens, his 18-year-old daughter Trinity and his 15-year-old son Kai left Canada for South Africa for a three-day vacation. They left for a week.

They arrived in Tanzania and spent a few days hiking up and down the mountain before flying to South Africa for a week to visit Stephens' parents. On the last day of the trip, Stephens and her children visited a children's home and donated medicine. They left for the Kingdom of Eswatini (former Swaziland). After visiting this orphanage, they returned in their rental vehicle. But before arriving, they stopped in the town of Mbobela to get some food and fuel. There, a person who appeared to be a police officer accosted them, but they quickly realized that the person was not a police officer and was pretending to be an officer.

They realized that these people were armed. At first they thought the men were looking for their rental vehicle, cell phones and other personal belongings, but they all got into the car and were told to keep their heads down so they wouldn't know where they were being taken.

The suspects drove for about 30 minutes before stopping in a wooded area near a cliff. These people then opened the car doors and took the cash and credit cards from the family's belongings with a gun and asked them to reveal their PIN numbers.

"They threatened to rape my daughter if the PIN was incorrect," Stephens said. The suspects then grabbed Stephens and beat him outside the car, he added.

At the time, Stephens said, the suspects "went from ATM to ATM, and he feared they would kill him and his family after emptying their bank accounts.

However, the kidnappers eventually brought them back and released them. In the end, the suspects stole approximately $10,000 in cash along with several cell phones and some jewelry.

Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs urged citizens abroad to "use extreme caution in South Africa due to the significant level of heinous crime, including impersonation of police officers and kidnapping." Stephens and her children returned to Canada on January 8.

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