{"id":336705,"date":"2017-11-26T17:03:05","date_gmt":"2017-11-26T16:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/uk-explorer-didnt-need-rescuing-despite-going-missing-in-papua-new-guinea-jungle-with-malaria-rt-uk-news\/"},"modified":"2017-11-26T17:03:05","modified_gmt":"2017-11-26T16:03:05","slug":"uk-explorer-didnt-need-rescuing-despite-going-missing-in-papua-new-guinea-jungle-with-malaria-rt-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/uk-explorer-didnt-need-rescuing-despite-going-missing-in-papua-new-guinea-jungle-with-malaria-rt-uk-news\/","title":{"rendered":"UK explorer \u2018didn\u2019t need rescuing\u2019… despite going missing in Papua New Guinea jungle with malaria \u2014 RT UK News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A British explorer who went missing in the Papua New Guinea jungle amid tribal infighting has insisted he didn\u2019t need rescuing. He was found on Thursday suffering from a malaria fever three weeks after entering the remote jungle. <\/p>\n

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Benedict Allen, a 57-year-old father of three, who had no cell phone or GPS device with him, had been reported missing after failing to catch his flight to Hong Kong last week. His family\u2019s distress at his apparent disappearance was widely reported across newspapers, TV and radio, and prompted Britain\u2019s Daily Mail to send a helicopter into the jungle to rescue him.<\/p>\n

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Read more<\/p>\n


\n \"Benedict
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Speaking from London on Tuesday Allen denied he had \u201cgot lost.\u201d<\/em> He told the BBC: \u201cI always knew where I was, things just began to go wrong.\u201d<\/em> Asked whether he needed rescuing, he said: \u201cEr, it\u2026 no.\u201d<\/em> He has also insisted that his symptoms of malaria were genuine and that the episode had not been a publicity stunt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can see why they get cynical and people have been known to do this, let\u2019s face it,<\/em>\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve videoed all of this and you can see me deteriorating with malaria\u2026 I\u2019m not up to speed with what people have been saying, I haven\u2019t read the newspapers. I gather there\u2019s been all this interest \u2013 I\u2019m slightly bewildered by it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

He said he had spent two days under observation at a hospital in Papua New Guinea before doctors gave him the all clear. Now, back in the UK, he said he was weak from malaria and \u201cnot that sharp mentally\u201d<\/em> but was \u201cbouncing right back.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Allen said his final tweet before entering the jungle, which read: \u201cMarching off to Heathrow. I may be some time (don\u2019t try to rescue me, please \u2013 where I\u2019m going in PNG you won\u2019t ever find me you know\u2026\u201d<\/em> might have prompted others to doubt the authenticity of his journey. He added: \u201cPeople are asking this question because I joked on Twitter as I left. I had no commission. I had no interviews before I left.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Allen had hoped to reconnect with the Yaifo tribe, one of the last native tribes on Earth to have no contact with the outside world. Allen is understood to have been marooned near an airstrip, where he was sighted after fighting between tribes in the area cut off roads and bridges.<\/p>\n

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Marching off to Heathrow. I may be some time (don’t try to rescue me, please – where I’m going in PNG you won’t ever find me you know…) pic.twitter.com\/BmH1DKdheS<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Benedict ALLEN (@benedictallen) October 11, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cPeople have been attacking me, saying I am an imperialist going in to see a lost tribe. It wasn\u2019t like that. I simply had the privilege 30 years ago to meet these people,\u201d<\/em> Allen said. \u201cI wanted to see that they were alive and well \u2013 and they were. It was magnificent, a great welcome.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

Allen is described as a traveler and survival expert. He has survived the wilderness against all odds before \u2013 in 1983, he returned from a 600-mile trek through the Amazon. He had been attacked by gold miners, had two types of malaria, and had eaten his companion dog to survive. The Bristol man has visited the Yaifo people once before, 30 years ago, gaining their trust and surviving brutal initiations to live within the tribe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n