PARIS (AP) – A 32-year-old French journalist was killed on Monday in eastern Ukraine, fatally injured by shell fragments while covering an evacuation operation from Ukraine, according to the French TV channel where he worked.
BFM TV reported that his journalist, Frederick Leclerc-Imhoff, was killed while “covering a humanitarian operation on an armored car” near Severodonetsk, a key city in the Donbas that Russian and Ukrainian forces are fighting fiercely. He worked for six years on a French TV channel.
French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to Leclerc-Imhoff on Twitter, saying he had “arrived in Ukraine to show the reality of the war.”
“On board a humanitarian bus, along with civilians forced to flee to escape Russian bombs, he was fatally shot,” Macron tweeted.
Macron expressed his condolences to his family and friends and expressed his “unconditional support for France” to those who are carrying out a difficult mission of informing in theaters of war.
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna called the journalist’s death “deeply shocking.”
“France demands that a transparent investigation be launched as soon as possible in order to shed full light on the circumstances of this tragedy,” she added.
Earlier on Monday, Luhansk Oblast Governor Syarhei Haidai told Telegram that Leclerc-Imhoff had died, saying Russian troops had fired on an armored car traveling to pick up people for evacuation.
“Shrapnel from the shells pierced the armor of the car, fatally injuring an accredited French journalist who was reporting on the evacuation. The patrolman was saved by a helmet, ”he wrote.
As a result of the attack, the evacuation was canceled, Gaidai said.
He published a picture of the accreditation of the Ukrainian press Leclerc-Imhoff and a picture of what he said was the consequences of the attack.
Adviser to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Anton Gerashchenko said that another French journalist was injured along with a Ukrainian woman who accompanied them.
He said Leclerc-Imhoff’s body had been evacuated to the nearby Ukrainian-ruled town of Bakhmut, from where it would be taken to the central city of Dnipro for autopsy.
According to him, a patrol officer who accompanied the car was hit by shrapnel in the head and taken to a military hospital.
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