“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 injured, ”President Emmanuel Macron announced on Twitter on Monday afternoon.
This French journalist who worked in particular for BFMTV, would have died hit by shrapnel in the region of Louhansk (East).
According to our information, his colleague who accompanied him, editor Maxime Brandstaetter, was injured and evacuated to Dnipro, in the east of the country.
The two journalists were to follow this Monday morning a bus evacuating civilians in this region of Donbass.
“The evacuation has been officially stopped.
The racists
(a term used to define the Russian forces)
fired on a car that was going to pick up people.
French journalist killed,” the regional administration wrote on Telegram.
🚨 According to the Governor of Luhansk, a French journalist was killed in #Ukraine, hit by shrapnel while filming an evacuation of civilians.
RSF is not revealing his identity at this time, until his family and colleagues are informed.
pic.twitter.com/ZCz7y42HMz
— RSF (@RSF_inter) May 30, 2022
According to the authorities of Luhansk, an armored vehicle would have come to seek civilians for an evacuation and would have been targeted by a bombardment.
"Shards of shrapnel pierced the armor of the car, a fatal neck wound was received by an accredited French journalist who was reporting on the evacuation," they said.
The journalist would have died on the spot.
Reports close to the fighting
According to Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff's Twitter account, he and Maxime Brandstaetter were in southern Ukraine at the end of May and had recently carried out reports as close as possible to the fighting in the localities of Bilozirka, Kherson and Mykolaiv.
In mid-March, the Franco-Irish photographer and cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski died in Horenka, northwest of kyiv, "when his vehicle was the target of fire", announced the CEO of Fox News Media, Suzanne Scott, channel for which he worked.
Ukrainian journalist and consultant Oleksandra Kuvshynova, 24, also died in the attack, while Benjamin Hall, the Fox News reporter they were accompanying, was seriously injured.
Fighting has intensified in recent weeks in Luhansk Oblast, located in the Donbass region, which has been fought over since 2014 by Ukrainian soldiers and pro-Russian separatists.
The Russians launched a major offensive a few days ago aimed at encircling the town of Severodonetsk, the last Ukrainian stronghold in the region.
Hundreds of civilians would still be there and would suffer the bombardments.