British photojournalist dies in Uganda after eating food with nuts
Rebecca Vassie.
What you need to know:
Vassie ate food with nuts, which she was allergic to, and it sent her into shock from which she never recovered
Kampala.
On Tuesday morning, the media fraternity woke up to sad news when information passed round that death had yet again snatched one of their own.
Rebecca Vassie, a photojournalist who was commonly referred to as Becky, died early Tuesday as an ambulance rushed her to Kampala for treatment. She had eaten food with nuts, which she was allergic to, and it sent her into shock from which she never recovered.
At the time of the incident, Vassie had been on assignment with an NGO in Hoima and had planned to be there for about a week. She did work for a number of organisations, including the The Associated Press, and was the training co-ordinator of the Foreign Correspondents’ Association of Uganda.
She also had a one-year stint with Daily Monitor as a freelance photographer in 2012, where colleagues remember her as a “kind soul”.
The 30-year-old, whose parents live in Spain, was a trained photographer from the United Kingdom, who was diverse in the subjects she took and excelled in mostly documentary and journalistic fields.
Vassie often published her work in all sorts of social media platforms, including her personal blog, including photographs of ex-rebel fighters from the Democratic Republic of Congo at the grounds of the Nkoma Sub-county headquarters surrounded by Ugandan security forces in western Uganda.
Racheal Mabala, a Daily Monitor photographer, who was also Vassie’s close friend, said the deceased taught her a lot about photography.
“We had this competitive thing that we often used to do. If one took a better picture than the other, the person who lost then had to pay for the picture,” she recalls.
Rodney Muhumuza, a Uganda Correspondent for The Associated Press, said: “She was a brilliant photographer, always interested in understanding the story in ways most photographers are not. We shall miss her.”
Meanwhile, heartfelt tributes and condolences are still pouring in on her Facebook page with one from Ane-Kirstine Bagger, a Kampala resident, recalling how Vassie spent the last Sunday morning taking pictures of her baby girl.
By press time Tuesday, her body was still at Mulago hospital mortuary as arrangements for her vigil and burial were still underway by her family and friends.
