“All I could do was trust complete strangers.”
A South African mother was forced to throw her baby from her burning apartment building in the hopes that strangers would catch her.
On Tuesday, the 26-year-old was filmed throwing her daughter, Melokuhle, from the building amidst ongoing riots in Durban.
The pair had been on the sixteenth floor when protestors raided the ground floor, setting the complex on fire.
[WATCH] Toddler rescued from a fire. Looters started a fire after stealing everything from the shops on the ground floor. They then set fire to the building, affecting apartments upstairs. Neighbours caught the little girl 🥺#ShutdownKZN watch @BBCWorld for more pic.twitter.com/LTMTAa7WAz
— Nomsa Maseko (@nomsa_maseko) July 13, 2021
The elevators were not working as a result of the fire, so Manyoni tried carrying the almost 2-year-old down the stairs in a desperate attempt to escape. When she couldn’t reach the ground floor, she squeezed through to a balcony and begged those on the street to catch her daughter.
“All I could think was to make sure my baby lived,” she told the BBC. “…All I could do was trust complete strangers.”
She then threw her daughter to the strangers, who thankfully caught her.
BBC cameraman and video producer Thuthuka Zondi captured the terrifying moment, later sharing a still of the girl free-falling.
Captured one those images that will forever live in my heart. Amongst the chaos there were heroes today, they caught her and she is fine. @nomsa_maseko pic.twitter.com/YX8KTap8ct
— Thuthuka Zondi (@ThuthukaZ) July 13, 2021
Both mother and daughter are now safe and were reunited after the video was taken.
Baby Melokuhle and her mom Naledi Manyoni are doing well. We met up with them earlier @BBCWorld @ThuthukaZ pic.twitter.com/B1dkGae2iF
— Nomsa Maseko (@nomsa_maseko) July 14, 2021
Feature image credit: Thuthuka Zondi/BBC
