Journalism can be a tough world, especially for women. There is no doubt that greater consideration should have been given to putting an attractive fair skinned blond at street level, considering police had earlier informed foreign journalists that the area was considered hostile and unsafe.

The incident initially started with verbal abuse by local women against all journalists present. A camera belonging to a German film crew was damaged, a lot of pushing and shoving started, Lara and her crew became separated, her sound recording engineer witnessed the assault on Lara but was unable to reach her.

He said she was pushed into what looked like a bus shelter. She was surrounded by about eight men, two held her and she was quickly stripped naked and repeatedly groped. A number of these men took lurid self gratification, he confirmed three or four other men carried out penetration, of these two seemed quite old.

At no point was an attempt made to stop them. There was a report that local women intervened, no one can confirmed this. It was a technician from a Dutch news channel who notified soldiers standing nearby, they intervened after about 25 minutes into the assault and Lara was brought through the crowd naked and reunited with two of her crew who commandeered a car and brought her back to their hotel.

Lara is a strong person, it will take considerable time to get her over this.