Hijack nightmare

Pregnant woman taken from Greenacres at gunpoint

A PREGNANT Port Elizabeth woman has told of her terrifying ordeal at the hands of a hijacker who she was convinced was going to kill her after she was held at gunpoint and abducted from the Greenacres shopping centre’s secure undercover car park in broad daylight.

The distraught woman – who is still in shock and has declined to be identified out of fear for her safety – is almost three months’ pregnant with twins and has spoken out to warn others.

Although police have described the abduction, in which the woman was forced to withdraw money from an ATM and told by the gunman she was going to be “dumped somewhere”, as an isolated incident, recent statistics show more than half of the almost 800 hijackings in the Eastern Cape in one year occurred in Nelson Mandela Bay.

The woman was admitted to hospital and treated for shock after the hijacking, which occurred on Friday.

Police, however, only released details of the incident yesterday.

“I parked my car on the second floor of the secure undercover parking at about 1.45pm,” the woman said.

“The next thing, there was a guy at my door with a gun. He pushed me over to the passenger seat and told me he would shoot me if I did anything stupid.

“I was crying and told him I was pregnant. I told him to take the car and my handbag. I also said he could have the [bank card] pin codes and that I just wanted to go. I was very scared and he told me to calm down and said he would not shoot or rape me. All he wanted was money.”