Last night, two Belgians were injured in the center of Beirut, Lebanon. They are war journalist Robin Ramaekers and cameraman Stijn De Smet from the Flemish channel VTM. They were allegedly attacked and interrogated for several hours. DPG Media specifies that the two Belgians are safe and cared for on site.
This Wednesday evening, a new 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 have gone 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 my cameraman Stijn De Smet alive again soon. No story is worth your life“, declared Robin Ramaekers in a first response this Thursday morning to HLN.
Sten, the cameraman shot in the leg, is still hospitalized on site while Robin has been released from the hospital. They are expected to return to Belgium on Saturday by a commercial flight.
They were beaten up and then interrogated quite violently
The VTM team had been in the Lebanese capital for several days to cover the rise in tensions between Hezbollah and Israel. The exact circumstances of the incident remain unclear. The two Belgians would not have been injured in a strike. They were allegedly questioned and assaulted before being hospitalized. “We know very little about the circumstances of what happened last night. It is simply that Robin and his fixer were attacked by a group of individuals, beaten up, then interrogated in a rather violent manner for several hours before to be released. They were suspected of being spies for Israel.” relates Charlotte Simonart from the editorial staff of our colleagues at VTM.
We are doing everything we can to bring them home
Their families are in regular contact with them, thus providing moral support during this difficult period. Nicholas Lataire, director of News City (VTM and HLN), underlines the editorial team’s commitment to supporting Robin and Stijn: “We are doing everything we can to help them and get them home quickly. The safety of our colleagues is our top priority“.
Robin and Stijn, who have covered conflicts around the world for more than a decade, regularly receive training in war journalism, which allows them to handle high-risk situations. “We know that there are risks in doing war journalism. And our journalists are really very trained. But it’s still a shock,” confides Nicholas Lataire
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“Never seen such destruction”: a Belgian journalist was able to go to the place where the leader of Hezbollah was killed
Tuesday evening, in our RTL info 7 p.m., the Flemish journalist reported on the very tense situation on site. With his cameraman, he went to the site of the attack on the leader of Lebanese Hezbollah, in the southern suburbs of Beirut. He was the first journalist to go there.
This new episode of violence in Beirut, already marked by a previous attack this week, is a reminder of the persistent instability in the region. Journalists continue to play a crucial role in reporting the truth about these tragic events.
middle east vtm Beirut