Kidnapped by ‘cannibal’ tribe
Couple tell of torture ordeal in the jungle
A BRITISH backpacker has told how he and his girlfriend were slashed with machetes by tribesmen while trekking through a remote jungle once notorious for cannibalism.
Matthew Iovane, 31, said he was hiking along a popular track in Papua New Guinea with Michelle Clemens when they were ambushed and subjected to a terrifying ordeal.
The terrified couple were stripped and blindfolded before being dragged into the rainforest by men armed with spears and wearing facepaint and masks made from feathers.
They managed to escape and fled halfnaked through the jungle until they came across sympathetic villagers who raised the alarm, Mr Iovane added.
‘We’d joked about the famous cannibals of Papua New Guinea’s jungle but it was no laughing matter when these men came out of the bush,’ he said as he prepared to fly home yesterday.
‘ They looked very scary in native costumes and what looked like warpaint and came closer before circling around us. They tore up my T-shirt to blindfold me and the awful thought crossed my mind that we could be on the menu.
‘They were totally feral and we were at their mercy. I thought we’d vanish into the jungle and never be seen again.’
Mr Iovane, a brand consultant and part-time DJ who appeared in the Channel 4 reality series Shipwrecked, had travelled to Sydney to meet up with Miss Clemens, also 31, and plan what was meant to be the dream trip to the wilderness.
The pair hired a local guide before embarking on the gruelling 60-mile Kokoda Track, a popular route with backpackers and the scene of several battles between Australia and Japan in the Second World War.
Initially, villagers could not have been more welcoming, Mr Iovane told The Sun.
‘The first five days were among the most amazing of our lives,’ he said.
‘We lived like Tarzan and Jane on nuts packed into our rucksacks and bananas, papaya, wild spinach and exotic tree tomatoes found only in this jungle.’
But the guide later disappeared, they said, and on their final morning they were ambushed by two tribesmen in traditional dress. ‘They both had machetes with huge blades and one had a long wooden spear with a crude arrowhead and they were grunting,’ Mr Iovane said.
They initially thought they were being robbed, but realised the situation was even more serious when the men started slashing away his clothes with the machetes before tying him up and threatening to kill him.
Miss Clemens, a restaurant hostess from Los Angeles, was taken away by the men who slashed her fingers to the bone and grabbed her iPhone, then – despite speaking no English – demanded to be shown how to use it. ‘I swear I heard one of them say what sounded the word “password”, which might have been funny if I hadn’t thought I was about to die,’ she said.
The pair said they managed to escape, fleeing through the rainforest and encountering wild dogs and poison ivy before they were rescued by friendly villagers.
‘The experience gave us the shock of our lives,’ Miss Clemens said. ‘But this won’t stop us trekking, although our next adventure will be a bit less challenging.’
Mr Iovane, from Shoreditch in East London, was on his way home last night after the pair received medical treatment in the PNG capital, Port Moresby.
Australian media reported that three people had been arrested over Monday’s attack.
The country’s Department of Foreign Affairs said the pair had been hiking without a licensed tour operator.
Charlie Lynn, a New South Wales MP who also runs tours on the Kokoda Track, said he had ‘never had one single issue’ with villagers along the trail.
‘ They’ve been welcoming, they’ve been helpful, they like the industry, they love Australians, they love trekkers,’ Mr Lynn said. ‘This is out of character, but if you go to Papua New Guinea you don’t walk around the bush without a local guide.’
Foreign Office travel advice warns there is a ‘ high level of serious crime’ in Papua New Guinea and also recommends using a reputable tour guide before tackling the Kokoda Track because there have been several attacks and robberies.
In 2013, a group of Australian trekkers were attacked on a trail near the Kokoda Track and two of their local porters were hacked to death.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘We are providing support to a British national and their partner who both suffered injuries and were taken to hospital following an incident in Papua New Guinea.’
‘We lived like Tarzan and Jane’