A mum who threw her baby off a burning building in South Africa to a crowd below says “panicked” at the moment she released she would have to toss her daughter.
The 26-year-old mum said as soon she saw smoke rising, she knew she and little Melokuhle had to get out of the building by any means necessary.
“All I could think was to make sure my baby lived,” Naledi Manyoni told the BBC in an interview.
The mother and daughter had become trapped trying to escape a building allegedly torched by looters in the city of Durban.
South Africa has erupted into riots as former President Jacob Zuma’s arrest provokes unrest.
Naledi she had been on the 16th floor when the fire started on Tuesday.
She ran down the stairs with her daughter and made her way to a ledge above the street and tossed the toddler to a group of people below as bystanders cried out.
Footage of the hair-raising incident shows her about to toss her baby off the edge to a crowd waiting with outstretched arms below.
(Image: via REUTERS)
“I looked down and I thought, no, I can do this,” Naledi told the BBC
“I can do this. In order for her to be out, I can try it.
She described being “scared” and “panicking” as she looked down to the street from the height.
“I was trusting anyone to take my baby away from me because the place was burning and she was crying.”
“All I could do was trust complete strangers.”
In the video of the moment, the crowd scream at the mum “throw her, throw her” before they catch the falling baby and carry her to safety.
Naledi said: “After they caught her I was relieved, I was really relieved. Even for me being there, I wasn’t scared any more because she was out of the place.”
Thuthuka Zondi, the cameraman and video producer who captured the dramatic moment, shared his astonishment at what he witnessed.
He wrote on Twitter : “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.”
South Africa is in the throes of one of the worst upheavals in the post-apartheid era, which began when former President Zuma was jailed last week for failing to appear for a corruption enquiry.
The protests, which started in Zuma’s home province KwaZulu-Natal on Saturday, soon turned into mass looting, arson and riots in provincial Durban and Johannesburg.