Landmine blast in war-torn Iraqi city kills Kurdish reporter Bakhtiyar Addad and French journalist Stephan Villeneuve.
A landmine blast in the Iraqi city of Mosul has killed one Kurdish and one French journalist, as Iraq’s forces push deeper into the last remaining areas held by ISIL fighters.
Smoke billows from the positions of ISIL fighters in western Mosul [Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters]
Kurdish reporter Bakhtiyar Addad, who was working with a French team as a fixer and interpreter, was killed in Monday’s explosion, according to public broadcaster France Televisions and global journalist rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders.
French journalist Stephan Villeneuve and two other French journalists were also wounded in the blast. Villeneuve later succumbed to his wounds, the broadcaster said in the early hours of Tuesday.
“The management and staff at France Televisions sympathise with the pain of his partner Sophie, his four children, his family and all those he was close to. They offer their most sincere condolences,” the head of the news department said in a statement.
Commenting on Addad’s death, The Metro Center for Journalists Rights and Advocacy said that “one more journalist became a victim to spreading the truth”, Rudaw, a media group in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, reported.
The centre added that Addad had been injured three times before as he covered the war in Mosul.
‘Very sad’
A video journalist who had covered a number of conflicts across the world, Villeneuve was filming a piece together with Veronique Robert on the battle of Mosul for French news programme Envoye Special, aired on public television channel France 2.
They were both taken to a hospital on a US military base following the explosion.
Reporter Samuel Forey, who worked for a number of French media organisations including French daily Le Figaro, also suffered light injuries.
“I am very sad for Bakhtiyar and my colleagues, I ask you to not contact me for a couple of days,” he wrote on Twitter.
In February, Rudaw correspondent Shifa Gardi, 30, was killed in a roadside bomb blastwhile covering clashes between Iraqi government forces and ISIL in Mosul.
