A bloke who is running the length of Africa has said he was mugged by a man called Saddam Hussein, who wanted just £2 to get a ride home.

Russell Cook, 26, from Worthing, West Sussex, decided to undertake the gargantuan journey after working a series of menial jobs, and growing resentful of the classic 9-5.

Since he set out, he's eaten up hundreds of miles of tarmac, had his passport and equipment stolen and now been mugged to the tune of £2 in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

READ MORE: 'I was paid to clean bogs but thought f*** it – I'm going to run the length of Africa'

Writing on Twitter, now called X, Russ said: "A bloke approached us just as we were setting up camp. Told us his name was Saddam Hussein.

"Demanded we give him 5000 francs (roughly £2) so he could get a lift home. Said we owe it to him because of colonial history. What would you do? He also had a big rock in his hand with spikes in."

He added in a separate tweet: "I landed on giving him 2000 cos I didn’t want to fully give in and have him outting us to his pals that there’s some white boys up road on an easy pinch. I’m also keen to avoid getting stabbed over 70p."

Russ, who has just finished his 102nd day running, said "it has been non stop chaos ever since" he arrived at DR Congo.

On his 100th day, justs shy of the DR Congo border, he said: "To be straight with you I’m feeling pretty mentally exhausted at the moment."

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He previously told the Daily Star in a chat that he wanted to run the length of Africa because "no-one’s ever done this before".

Russ, who last worked for an organisation called The Running Charity, said "I had every nine to five you could think of” before hatching his mad plan.

“The moment I was like ‘f*** this’ and booked the flight I was doing loads of cleaning jobs,” he explained.

“I was waking up every day at like 4am to go and scrub floors and clean toilets, and that was the same time I started picking up running properly, so I got a few pennies together and thought ‘f*** it’.”

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