Theft at airports

[Tunisiamad]

We've just returned from a weeks stay in Tunisia-our 17th visit. We had a late flight and chose to have a late check out room at the hotel. Having had late flights before etc and have to have all your belongings hanging around the hotel lobby and in your hand luggage we always have a dilemma with where and what do you do with your personal bits that you don't want to lose. So, like previous times before we chose to put our jewellery pack in one of the suitcases thinking it's hard to keep your eye on your hand luggage all the time. Unfortunately that was the wrong choice and we ended up with one of our suitcases being ransacked at the airport and jewellery being stolen from it.

Having spoken with the police in this country we have come to the conclusion that it had it have happened in Tunisia. We landed at Teesside and the cases came through in about 5 minutes of landing. Apparently anywhere you travel theft from suitcases and hand luggage is a more common than we are led to believe.

Knowing Tunisia and its people we have been totally shocked and devastated by the theft and hope that Thomson and the Tunisian police will deal with it accordingly.

In 13 years of travelling to Tunisia we have only come across a couple of incidents against visitors and all the locals are appalled. After all we the visitors are their livelihood, more so than other parts of the world and if our belongings cannot be safe then?

Maybe the country has changed from our first few years and with more and more visitors pouring through the airports then are we seen as less of a needy resource for some and seen as easy pickings for others � we being rich!!

My gut feeling at the minute is to cancel our forth coming holiday there in August especially if Thomson and the police don't give us support. Our French is limited to �tourist' level and not up to ringing up and having a conversation to them personally about this, so we are relying on Thomson.

We've lost a little of the love we have for the country, we were even thinking of buying property over there. Those who break the law in Tunisia when caught are dealt with severely and we hope that those in the airport are caught and dealt with.

So fellow travellers to all countries put your personal items that you don't want to lose on your person because after what we've been told neither your hand luggage nor suitcase is safe.

We live and learn!!
:icon_grrs