Five Al Jazeera journalists based in Kenya found themselves fighting off a swarm of bees on Thursday, August 20, while en route to record an assignment.
Speaking to Kenyans.co.ke, Mugo Patrick, who was the producer of the project, disclosed that while rowing their boat through a flooded village in Baringo, the team accidentally disrupted a beehive and had to deal with the consequences.
"We were attacked by bees. We were just steering across this flooded area. We were going with that boat and some places were shallow.
"We reached at a point while we were turning, we disrupted one beehive and we provoked them so they came at us," he stated.
He further noted that he sustained the most injuries and had to abandon the shoot to seek treatment for a better part of the day.
"We could not speed off because the water was shallow so we had to push the boat. That was the time they decided to attack us.
"I got much of the stinging. I went to the hospital, got treated and discharged, the rest of the team continued with their work," he added explaining that he did not participate in the work .
Just like any other career, journalists in Kenya have had to navigate work place hazards, which essentially involves almost all other hazards as they move across different industries compiling reports.
An assessment by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) revealed that journalists face assault and even fatal hazards in the course of their work.
More than 60 journalists, seven of them women, were assaulted, attacked, harassed and intimidated in the course of their work during the study period, between May 2015 and April 2016.
The report also noted that some journalists and bloggers were regularly arrested and jailed due to the nature of the report they published that bruised the egos of influential people.
When Bees Attack
Although regarded as generally harmless to many people, bee stings can turn quite lethal to individuals who have insect sting allergies as stings may trigger a dangerous anaphylactic reaction that is potentially deadly.
When a bee stings, the first step in treatment is to remove the sting itself. Pain and swelling should then be reduced with a cold compress.
The more the sting stays inside the human body the more the venom is injected into the system.
