South African Reporter Mugged On Camera By Armed Men
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JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, March 11 (UPI) — A South African TV journalist was mugged on camera seconds before he was due to deliver a live report outside a hospital.
The SABC News camera recorded the two men approaching contributing editor Vuyo Mvoko outside Johannesburg’s Milpark Hospital Tuesday night while he was preparing to deliver a report on Zambia’s president arriving at the facility for some tests.
“It was like seconds to air and then the commotion started… I couldn’t understand why they’d walk right in front of the camera because the light is on and they could see that — and our car is branded, so they could see that this is a live broadcast,” Mvoko told the BBC.
Mvoko said the robbers demanded he hand over his phone.
“Because I wasn’t giving him the phone, he then called the other one who had a gun, and said: ‘Dubula le nja [Shoot this dog],'” Mvoko told SABC after the incident.
Mvoko said the men fled after he handed over his phone. The robbers also took another phone and a laptop computer from the news crew.
“Hopefully someone will be able to identify them and get them arrested,” Mvoko said.
The South African National Editors’ Forum issued a statement following the incident.
“Every South African lives with the reality of crime, but to see thugs brazenly ignoring television cameras and robbing media workers in the course of their work yet again brings home the level of criminality in our society,” a spokesman said.
