Efforts to evacuate civilians in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine were suspended on Monday (May 30) after an armoured transport was hit by shrapnel from a Russian shell, killing a French journalist, regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said.
Gaidai wrote on the Telegram app that the shrapnel had pierced the vehicle’s armour, killing the accredited French journalist travelling inside.
French channel BFM TV, who employed the journalist, identified him as Frederic Leclerc-Imhoff.
In a tweet on Monday afternoon, French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his condolences to Leclerc-Imhoff’s family and close friends.
Reporters without Borders (RSF) Director General Christophe Deloire said according to details gathered by his NGO, 28-year-old Leclerc-Imhoff was killed while he was aboard a humanitarian bus along with another journalist and a Ukrainian fixer, both of whom were not killed.
“It’s absolutely revolting to see that in this conflict — in a continuous manner and unfortunately this has not stopped — there has been a disdain for the Geneva Convention,” Deloire said.
(Reuters)
