Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the South African authorities to guarantee the freedom and safety of journalists covering the coronavirus epidemic and to punish all those responsible for abuses against reporters, including the newspaper editor who fled to Lesotho last week after repeated police beatings.

The editor of the Mohokare News community newspaper in Ficksburg, a town on the border with Lesotho, Paul Nthoba fled across the border into this small enclaved nation on 19 May, four days after being repeatedly assaulted by Ficksburg police in connection with his coverage of a lockdown enforcement operation.

“It is unthinkable in the South Africa of 2020 that a journalist should have to flee the country for covering a simple lockdown operation,” said Arnaud Froger, the head of RSF’s Africa desk.

Rubber bullets were fired at News24 reporter Azarrah Karrim while she was covering a lockdown enforcement operation in Johannesburg on the first day of the nationwide lockdown in South Africa, the sub-Saharan country with the highest coronavirus death toll (481 on 26 May).

In Eswatini, a small enclaved nation between South Africa and Mozambique that is Africa’s only remaining absolute monarchy, Eugene Dube, the editor of Swati Newsweek website, was also forced to flee abroad last month after publishing articles criticizing the king and his government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.