Moment an African street vendor is nearly beaten to death for stopping a purse snatcher in the Bronx

Police are looking for a group of men who beat a street vendor unconscious in the Bronx, which left him with serious injuries.



Souleymane Porgo, 53, from Burkina Faso in West Africa is in critical condition after five men approached him on Tuesday afternoon and punched him multiple times.



He was knocked to the ground but even after he fell the men continued to punch him before they walked away.



Police confirmed on Saturday that two of the men involved have been identified as Enrique Foote, 18, and William Burgess, 21, but they have not been caught. NYPD are still trying to identify the other three suspects.



The victim's skull was fractured and his jaw was broken in the attack. NYPD have also said he suffered bleeding in the brain, according to Buzzfeed. He was brought to Lincoln Hospital where he had surgery Tuesday night.



Part of his skull was removed in surgery to decrease the pressure from swelling and internal bleeding in his brain, his wife told New York Daily News.



He remains in critical condition.



The assault was caught on a cellphone video that was posted to Facebook. In the 20-second video, the vendor can be seen falling, with his head hitting the ground.



His wife and two daughters can be seen in the video, his wife clearly shocked by her husband's injuries.



Earlier that day Porgo had stopped one of the men from stealing a purse from Porgo's table on East 149th Street. He returned with four friends to beat the vendor around 5pm, according to DNA Info.



A GoFundMe page has been set up to raise money for Porgo, his wife and his two daughters. According to the fundraising campaign, the vendor is in a coma and has a 50 percent chance of surviving. The page has already raised more than $8,000.



'I couldn’t do nothing to help him, my daughters were right there,' Porgo's wife told New York Daily News. 'I wanted to help but at the same time I had the baby so I couldn't really do nothing.'


Someone who knew Porgo told NBC New York: 'Every day I would walk past, and he was very humble. Very humble guy. It hurts me so bad that it was him. That's terrible.'