Two men, one armed with a gun, were caught on camera late on Tuesday mugging a South African journalist as he prepared for a live television report on Zambian President Edgar Lungu's hospital treatment.

The video, which was posted on the Internet, shows the men pacing around reporter Vuyo Mvoko while he speaks to the camera, before a scuffle ensues, and then Mvoko is heard shouting: "Hey, we're being mugged."

"He was looking for the phone and when I wasn't giving him the phone, he calls the other one who has a gun, to say: 'shoot this dog' or something like that," Mvoko, who works for the national broadcaster, told radio station 702 on Wednesday.

"So I gave him the phone."

The incident is just one of scores of often violent crimes, including rape, robberies, and murder, recorded every day in South Africa, earning it a place among the most violent countries in the world outside a war zone.

Zambia's Lungu, 58, is in South Africa for medical tests after he fell ill at the weekend with a suspected narrowing of the food pipe.