They were crossing the first bridge in Irpin, a city northwest of Ukraine’s capital Kiev, when they started shooting at them.
The driver turned around and they continued to fire at them. American journalist Brent Renaud was shot in the neck and died at the scene.
His companion, the American photographer of Colombian origin Juan Arredondo, and the driver of the vehicle in which they were traveling were injured.
Renaud is the second journalist to lose his life in the war in Ukraine and the first foreigner.
(Read: UNESCO condemns the death of an American journalist in Ukraine)
The details of the events were revealed by the testimony of Juan Arredondo, born in Pereira, photographer and adjunct professor at the Columbia University School of Journalism.
Arredondo is a 2019 Harvard Nieman Scholar. His photographs have been published in The New York Times, National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, ESPN, Vanity Fair and other media outlets, according to his personal website biography.
(Video: Juan Arredondo, the photographer of Colombian origin injured in Ukraine)
As he told Associated Press Italian journalist Annalisa Camilli, he was traveling with Renaud to tell the story of the refugees fleeing the city of Irpín.
It was Camilli who published a video on his networks in which the photographer is seen lying on a hospital stretcher while being treated for his injuries.
(Also: ‘They killed my nephews’: the horrors that are experienced in the war in Ukraine)
“My friend Brent Renaud was shot in the neck and left behind. And we parted”Arredondo stated in the minute-long video.
Renaud was a 51-year-old American journalist and documentary filmmaker. He had documented the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, and was now in Ukraine to report on this conflict.
“We were going to record other refugees who were leaving (the town). Someone offered us a car to take us to the other bridge and as we crossed the checkpoint they started shooting at us. The driver turned around, but they kept shooting,” said the Colombian.
“Brent was in the region working on a Time Studios project focused on the global refugee crisis,” Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal and Time and Time Studios president Ian Orefice said in a statement.Ukrainian authorities accused the “Russian occupants” of opening fire on the car of the two American journalists.
Brent was in the region working on a Time Studios project focused on the global refugee crisis.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ, for its acronym in English) said that the attack is a violation of international law.
Renaud’s death was initially confirmed by the Kiev Police, who blamed Russian forces for the event. However, the authors have not yet been confirmed.
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At first it was disclosed that Renaud was a journalist for The New York Times, which was later denied by this newspaper, with which Renaud had collaborated a few years ago.
Shortly after the cameraman’s death, the organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called for an investigation to clarify the causes, while The United States Government promised to apply the “appropriate consequences”, although it noted that it is in contact with the Ukrainian authorities to obtain more information about the incident.
According to his website, Renaud frequently worked with his brother producing documentaries and television shows and had received a Peabody Award for his work.
For its part, UNESCO condemned the death of American journalist Brent Renaud and assured that “it should never have happened.”
“Journalists have an essential role in reporting on conflict and should never be targeted. I call for the respect of international humanitarian rules so that media workers are respected,” UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay of France said in a statement.
Although UNESCO avoided attributing the attack to a specific warring party, while recalling that the journalist had worked for a number of media outlets, including HBO, NBC and The New York Times, and had experience in conflict.
Among the different reactions, the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, who refrained from pointing out who could be the authors of the attack, said: “Before him (Renaud), others have been harassed, killed, vilified or kidnapped. Our thoughts go to those journalists who are guided by courage and by an ideal: the freedom to inform. Freedom is fundamental to our democracies.”
Also from Paris, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called for an investigation to clarify Renaud’s death. “We ask that the circumstances of the death of documentary filmmaker Brent Renaud and the injuries suffered by the journalist who accompanied him on the outskirts of Kiev be clarified. Journalists cannot be a target in a war!”
With the death of Renaud they are already 11 journalists killed in Ukraine since 2014the year in which the conflict broke out in the Donbas region, in the east of the country.
EFE and AFP
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