N.Z. man rescued

Press, 9 May 1984, Page 8

N.Z. man rescued

Quick action by British Embassy officials in Katmandu may have saved the life of a New Zealander badly wounded by Nepalese robbers. Mr Robert Munro, aged 32, of Christchurch, was flown back to New Zealand on Monday after a 12-day ordeal which started when he and his wife, Gay, were robbed by two youths in an inaccessible region of Nepal. He was reported to be in a “fairly comfortable” condition in the neurosurgical unit at Christchurch Hospital yesterday. The head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ consular division, Mr Harry Hobson, said from Wellington yesterday that he could not praise highly enough the

staff of the small British Embassy who arranged for a Nepalese helicopter to bring the couple back to Katmandu, the Nepalese capital. He understood that the Munros had been trekking in the mountains when the attack occured at a place called Gharopani on April 26. Mr Munro had been badly injured with a sharp weapon, believed to be a machete. They lost all their money, travellers’ cheques, passports and airline tickets, but managed to place a telephone call to the British Embassy in Katmandu. “I understand from the embassy that they were lucky they managed to contact them at all,” Mr Hob-

son said. Immediate arrangements were made for the helicopter rescue, which probably cost thousands of dollars. The couple were then taken from Katmandu to Bangkok, where Mr Munro spend two days in hospital before being flown to New Zealand on Monday. Mr Hobson said a “profound debt of gratitude” was owed to the British Embassy. Insurance would probably cover the costs involved, but Mr Hobson said the embassy’s small staff bad done a tremendous job to help the Munros, in spite of being under heavy pressure themselves to cope with the many British tourists in Nepal.