While the tension in Egypt was coming to a climax with the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, Lara Logan, CBS News correspondent and native of South Africa who has covered war zones for 18 years, stood bravely amongst the riotous torrent of celebrating people in Tahrir Square to cover this incredible, and significant event.
But then, just moments after the above photo was taken, while attempting to maneuver away from the crowd, Logan, her crew, and security team found themselves surrounded by a hysterical mob of more than 200 people.
Logan was separated from her crew and faced an incredibly harrowing, horrifying experience, suffering through a brutal physical and sexual assault.
According to the most recent reports, Logan was rescued by an estimated twenty soldiers, and a group of incredibly heroic women. She was then brought back to her hotel. She returned to the United States on the first flight the next morning, where she recovered in an undisclosed hospital. She was released yesterday in, “remarkably good spirits” according to The Daily Beast.
Prior to this disturbing turn of events, Logan and her news crew had been handcuffed, arrested, and detained by the Egyptian military, but despite the danger, she vowed to return to the region to cover the events, and interview Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who helped organize the uprising that led to president Mubarak’s resignation, saying that it was “in [her] blood” to cover this story.
While the attack on Logan is horrifying and disheartening, Logan’s immense courage and strength throughout her coverage in Egypt, even as reports surfaced of violence against other journalists including Anderson Cooper and Greg Palkot, is incredibly inspirational. Logan not only risked the threat of danger, but faced it, head on, in person, all for the sake of informing the world, bringing the viewers with her to the center of the recent developments in Egypt.
Watch an except of Logan’s discussion on terror in Egypt.
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfGrijV_TqY 425×344]Photo courtesy of NPR.
