Sebabatso Mosamo, an Associated Press visual journalist in South Africa who documented elections, the COVID-19 pandemic and her country’s struggle with poverty and violence, has died. She was 39.
Mosamo died at a hospital in Johannesburg on Saturday after falling ill a week earlier, a family spokesperson said. No cause of death was immediately released.
Known by colleagues and friends as “Sebs,” Mosamo joined the AP in 2021 after working for several prominent South African news outlets, using photos and video to tell intimate stories about people in her country and continent.
“We are at a loss for words and our hearts are shattered,” Mosamo’s family said in a statement. She “took so much pride in her work and family,” the family said.
Described as fearless by current and former colleagues — and always willing to speak up for what she believed was right — Mosamo had been selected this year to participate in an internal leadership program for AP employees.
“It would have been wonderful to witness more of her impressive trajectory as an impactful journalist. It is heartbreaking that we will not,” said Andrew Drake, AP’s deputy director of news for Africa.
When she was 26 and still a student, Mosamo in 2012 covered South Africa’s Marikana massacre, in which striking mineworkers killed two police officers and two security guards, and police responded by fatally shooting more than 30 miners.
It remains the most lethal use of force by South African police since the end of the apartheid system of racial segregation in 1994 and is a tragedy seared into the nation’s psyche.
Arriving at Marikana a day after the shootings and with miners still in a tense standoff with police, Mosamo stood out as one of the few female journalists. She only had an entry-level camera with no zoom lens, so to capture images still recognized years later she put herself as close as possible to the angry miners, despite the threat of more violence.
“We call it zooming in with your feet,” Mosamo said in an interview with South African television station Newzroom Afrika on the 10th anniversary of the massacre.
“I wanted to capture some of the human element,” said Mosamo, who connected with her subjects on a personal level and managed to find moments of humor and kindness amid the violence; a colleague photographed miners beside her looking fascinated as she shared images she had taken of them.
Mosamo co-wrote a book on Marikana, titled “We Are Going To Kill Each Other Today,” and produced a documentary about violence in rural South Africa.
South African photographer Felix Dlangamandla, a former colleague who collaborated with Mosamo and others on the book, said she always wanted to know more.
“She always felt she was still learning. She was so dedicated,” he said.
Mosamo is survived by a young daughter, her mother and two brothers.
Aware of her tendency to become engrossed in her work, Mosamo had an alarm on her cellphone that would shrill every weekday at 4:30 p.m. It was a reminder that she had an hour to pick up her daughter from child care or make plans for friends or family to get her.
At AP, she covered tumultuous elections in Zimbabwe, the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on the poorest South Africans, a cholera crisis in Zambia, and the seismic 2024 vote in South Africa that ended the African National Congress party’s 30-year majority.
One of Mosamo’s most memorable stories was capturing how poor, rural South African children still walk miles to get to school – yet she reminisced more about getting to know them and their families than taking the photos and video.
She was also energized by discussing story ideas and collaborating with colleagues, said Vicki Ferrar, an AP news manager and mentor to Mosamo. “She fought so hard for stories and getting them right.”
