Two Belgians were injured in the center of Beirut, Lebanon, this week. They are currently repatriated to Belgium.
During the evening of Wednesday October 2, an Israeli airstrike left six people dead in the Bachoura district, in the heart of Beirut. VTM’s war journalist, Robin Ramaekers (49), and his cameraman, Stijn De Smet (37), were injured while trying to report on this subject with a fixer, their contact on site.
“The last 24 hours have been very intense and played out very differently than we could have imagined. I am happy that we tried to tell the stories of the Lebanese people even in difficult circumstances and I am especially happy to see again soon my cameraman Stijn De Smet alive, No story is worth your life”, declared Robin Ramaekers in a first response published this Thursday morning on HLN.
38 Belgians
Since this Friday evening, repatriation planes have been bringing volunteers from Lebanon back to European soil. A first aircraft arrived in Eindhoven with 55 Belgians on board. This Saturday, a second flight is underway with 38 Belgian citizens inside. Among them, the two journalists from our colleagues at VTM. For clarification, around forty places were intended for Belgium on board the military plane. Only 33 people showed up, leaving room for Robin Ramaekers and his cameraman, Stijn De Smet.
Tensions in the Middle East Lebanon Beirut journalists injured
