The report of a German tourist being attacked by enraged Herero in Okakarara has been exposed as a lie. After his arrival in Windhoek, the 66-year-old bicycle-tourist had told the Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper that he had been verbally abused about the Herero genocide at a grocery store in Okakarara when he identified himself as a German. He claimed that police arrived and took him and the crowd to the police station, where a Herero beat him and threatened to kill him. According to the tourist, he eventually accepted the offer to stay under police protection at the station, where he spent the night fearing for his life.
Because the tourist had already tasked an acquaintance with putting a divergent version of the incident on the internet, the private German radio station Hitradio Namibia enquired about it at the police in Okakarara. Inspector Nabot Amakali, officer in charge at the police station, said that the man had at no point been hit with a fist as he had claimed. Also, he had instigated the argument by taking pictures of the Herero without asking for permission. According to Amakali this had taken place at a bar and not at a grocery store. Since it was after sunset and the tourist did not have accommodation, he was offered a place to sleep at the police station.
The same tourist had already spread lies before that: He said he had been attacked in his tent at the Namibia Wildlife Resorts (NWR) campsite at the Waterberg. The next day he told his story at the neighbouring private Waterberg Wilderness resort and claimed to have warded off the intruder, who had stabbed him in the hand with a knife. When asked to show the wound to prove it, he was at a loss. At the rest camp itself nobody knew about the incident.