Maciej Pastwa; photo pastwa.eu
“I am finally home,” the adventurer from Poznan said after he was deported from the central African state earlier this week
He was brought back to Poland by colleagues from the Kazimierz Nowak Foundation.
“I have been deported and banned from the Central African Republic. The decision about my deportation was taken on Tuesday and immediately afterwards I was transported to an aircraft that took me to Morocco, and from there I boarded a plane to Berlin.”
Pastwa has travelled over 60.000 km hitchhiking the world over several years and has visited more than 60 countries in six continents.
But his trip to Africa began to turn into a scene from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness when he was near one of the villages close to Bangui, near the nation’s capital, where he was giving his support to the construction of a well for the local population.
On 31 July he was arrested and taken into custody for refusing to pay bribes, after which the local police confiscated his personal documents, telephone, and took his money.
The Foreign Ministry and Consulate of Canada became involved in the case due to Pastwa’s dual citizenship, alongside MEP from the Law and Justice (PiS) party Konrad Szymański, who helped him by sending an appeal to the European Commission and to the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs.
Pastwa admitted however that during his arrest he was treated well, but on Saturday he was transferred from a detention centre to another place where conditions were more difficult.
“In front of me I saw a man being tortured, beaten everywhere around his legs. During the night I heard cries from people being beaten,” he says.
Despite his experiences, Pastwa wants to return to the continent.
“I love Africa, and I’ll go back there. My opinion and relations with the African people have not changed, “ said Maciej Pastwa. (mjz/pg)
Correction - this article originally stated that Pastwa was arrested in Democratic Republic of Congo. This was incorrect.