The SABC's contributing editor Vuyo Mvoko was mugged on Tuesday evening as the SABC News cameras kept rolling and captured the armed criminals on live SABC television attacking the reporter and the SABC crew.
Vuyo Mvuku was mugged by at least three men who at first walked past, then returned, and were clearly oblivious that they were being captured on camera while robbing the TV news crew at gunpoint.
Vuyo Mvuku was ready to do a report during a live crossing from the Milpark Hospital where Zambia's president Edgar Lungu is undergoing surgery.
The criminals can be heard saying "Give me! Give me!" as a woman starts screaming in the background.
"We're being mugged! We're being mugged!" said Vuyo Mvoko, after which the SABC TV news bulletin cut away.
Later on Tuesday night the SABC returned to the story with Vuyo Mvoko back in the SABC News studio to report on him becoming a victim of a mugging outside the Milpark Hospital.
"It was literally seconds before going on the air at 19:00," said Vuyo Mvoko an hour later, speaking on the SABC News TV channel about the shocking mugging incident.
He said he had his cellphone in his hand and the light on him because he had just spoke to the executive producer about the crossing he was about to do.
"Because I wasn't giving him the phone, he called the other one who had a gun. So at that point Sophia just screamed 'Give him the phone!' I think they took about two or three phones," said Vuyo Mvoko.
"My phone, Sophia's phone and someone else's phone. Also the laptop that was linked to the van, to the DSNG van. And they just disappeared."
