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Pretoria - When a robber passed tracksuit pants to her to cover her skimpy pyjamas, she knew she would survive the ordeal.
Lizelle Cordier, 30, and her fiancé, Johan Buys, 31, were one of two couples who was attacked at a luxury Bushveld retreat on Friday night.
Cordier told Netwerk24 that she and Buys had been celebrating their fifth year as a couple at Beka Idube in Leeuwkloof, near Cullinan.
"We went to bed at about 23:00, when we heard a noise outside our tent," Cordier said.
Four robbers, all wearing red shirts and blue overalls, had cut a hole in the tent’s window and jumped through.
Two of the robbers were armed.
"They told us in English: 'We are criminals. We are here to rob you. Don’t try anything funny'," said Cordier.
Buys had to lie on his stomach on the bed, and the robbers tied his hands with wire and his feet with shoelaces.
"We were 90% sure that they were going to shoot us," said Cordier.
'I untied Johan’s feet with my mouth'
She was scared that something would happen to her, because she was wearing skimpy pyjama pants. However, one of the robbers took tracksuit pants out of her suitcase and said in Afrikaans: "Mevrou, trek die broek aan." (Put on these pants.)
"That’s when I knew we were safe."
The robbers tied her up as well, using an electric cord.
They ransacked the tent for about and hour.
Cordier said she and Buys could hear the men argue about logistics.
"We thought they were going to steal the car, because they kept on opening and closing the doors and putting appliances, like the microwave oven, into it.
"But then they must’ve decided their chances of getting away were probably best if they fled on foot."
The robbers made off with property worth about R131 000.
"I untied Johan’s feet with my mouth. He then found a knife which I could hold between my hands. We moved up and down together to cut the cord between my hands," said Cordier.
Other couple hid in bushes
After Buys had untied her, they ran to the nearest tent they could find. The tent had also been ransacked, but the holidaymakers were nowhere to be found.
Cordier and Buys then ran to the owner of the resort’s house. He apparently drove around on this quad bike and found the other couple hiding in the bushes.
Cordier said the couple apparently had decided to hide after the robbers had taken their bank cards and threatened to come back to kill them if their PIN numbers didn’t work.
None of the victims was seriously injured.
Police spokesperson Constable Connie Moganedi, said they were investigating a case of business robbery.
He didn’t know who the other couple was.
The resort said it couldn’t comment because the matter was sub judice.
