Read on Twitter
Yesterday, @Atulinda_Allan went out to film in a Kampala slum neighbourhood and were nearly flogged by a bunch of young men. Contributor was a woman struggling to feed her family due to #COVID19 safety restrictions. With us was a friend of hers who& #39;d been to the area previously.
The men were sitting around on benches, playing cards. Some initially appeared jumpy on account of our equipment. And they knew they were breaking rules on gathering. The lady we were with explained our interest (she& #39;d met some of them before) and they calmed down.
Two of them went off to find the woman we had come to interview. We stood at a distance and waited, as the group seemed to settle down and kick off a new game. Our emissaries returned shortly, with news that our contributor wasn& #39;t at home.
While we discussed what to do, the situation exploded. The guy who seemed to be the leader of the group started shouting at our two emissaries that they needed to leave, now! His mates joined in. He raved, raged, yelled at someone to bring & #39;solido& #39;.
A black, stiff cable was produced in less than a minute. Before we knew it, it had landed, several times, in quick succession, on the emissary& #39;s back. The victim and his friend scattered, and so did the women who& #39;d been doing their chores in the yard nearby and not minding us
It took me a minute to realise that our fixer was clutching her fingers. Had hand had fallen an accidental victim. The attacker then turned to us and said we had nothing to fear. This had nothing to do with us. Everybody took a deep breath. Then he turned to us again...
"You and your cameras, you also need to leave!" My team and I decided we needed to get out of there, fast, and wait for our contributor somewhere else. We never found out what the dispute was. But it seemed to be about a money deal gone wrong, from what I heard later.
My sense it that there is a whole lot more violence bubbling up below the surface, in those young men, in that area, than we witnessed.
