French journalist Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff was killed on Monday in Eastern Ukraine's Luhansk region when the Russian military attacked a civilian evacuation convoy that he was covering.
The French news broadcaster BFM TV said Leclerc-Imhoff, 32, was fatally hit by shell shrapnel while "covering a humanitarian operation in an armoured vehicle" near Sievierodonetsk, a key city in Eastern Ukraine that is being hotly contested by Russian and Ukrainian forces. He had worked for six years for the French channel.
While Leclerc-Imhoff was killed, his colleague Maxime Brandstaetter also suffered injurues, according to BFM TV, which added that their Ukrainian producer Oksana Leuta was unharmed in the attack. It added that Leclrec-Imhoff was on his second assignment of Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
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French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to Leclerc-Imhoff on Twitter in French.
"Journalist Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff was in Ukraine to show the reality of the war. On board a humanitarian bus, alongside civilians forced to flee to escape Russian bombs, he was fatally shot," said Macron as per a translation of his tweet.
He added, "I share the pain of the family, relatives and colleagues of Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, to whom I send my condolences. To those who carry out the difficult mission of informing in theaters of operations, I would like to reiterate France's unconditional support."
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna called the death "deeply shocking" and demanded a "transparent inquiry" to "shed full light on the circumstances of this tragedy".
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Earlier on Monday, the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, announced Leclerc-Imhoff's death in a Telegram post, saying that Russian forces fired on an armoured vehicle that was travelling to pick up people for evacuation.
He wrote, "Shrapnel from the shells pierced the vehicle's armour, fatally wounding an accredited French journalist in the neck who was reporting on the evacuation. The patrol officer was saved by his helmet."
He added that the evacuation was called off after the attack. He posted an image of Leclerc-Imhoff's Ukrainian press accreditation and images of what he said was the aftermath of the attack.
Hanna Liubakova, a Belarusian journalist and a non-resident fellow of Atlantic Council, shared the photograph of the vehicle Leclerc-Imhoff was in and said he was hit in the neck.
Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko Leclerc-Imhoff's body was evacuated to the nearby Ukrainian-held city of Bakhmut, from where it will be taken to the central city of Dnipro for an autopsy. He added the patrol officer accompanying the vehicle was hit by shrapnel in the head and taken to a military hospital.
At least eight journalists have so far been killed during their reporting duties in the war-torn country. They are:
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- Russian journalist Oksana Baulina
- Ukrainian Oleksandra "Sasha" Kuvshynova
- Irish photojournalist Pierre Zakrzewski
- American Brent Renaud
- Ukrainian journalist Yevhenii Sakun
- Ukrainian journalist Shakirov Dilerbek Shukurovych
- Lithuanian filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravicius
- Ukrainian photojournalist Maks Levin
More journalists have been wounded, including Fox News reporter Benjamin Hall who survived the attack in which Sasha and Pierre were killed. Colombian-American journalist Juan Arredondo was injured in the attack that killed Brent Renaud.
Fox's Hall lost a leg, a foot in another leg, and one of his eyes in the Russian attack.
In March, Russian fighters had ambushed and attacked a team of Sky News journalists. Multiple team members sustained bullet injuries in the attack but they were saved by their body armours.
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(With AP inputs)
