AFP Journalist Injured Near Bakhmut
On Monday 24 July, Dylan Collins, a 35-year-old American video journalist for AFP, has been injured in a drone attack while reporting on the work of Ukrainian artillery forces near Bakhmut.
As Agence France Presse reported, Collins suffered numerous shrapnel wounds as a result of the attack in the forest belt near Bakhmut. The journalist was evacuated to the nearest hospital, where he received first aid. Doctors say that nothing threatens Collins’ life: he is conscious and keeping in touch with colleagues.
AFP Europe director Christine Buhagiar said the agency was investigating the circumstances of the incident.
#AFP video journalist @collinsdyl was wounded by a drone attack while reporting at a Ukrainian artillery position on Monday, AFP reporters who witnessed the explosion said.
Dylan Collins, a US citizen based in Lebanon but on assignment in #Ukraine, sustained multiple shrapnel… pic.twitter.com/x2lGlLBL68— Stephanie Youssef (@stephanie_ysf) July 24, 2023
Dylan Collins has been with AFP since 2018 as a video coordinator in Lebanon and Syria, but has regularly been on assignments in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.
The journalist has significant experience in conflict zones in the Middle East: in 2020, he covered the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
On 9 May, during the Russian shelling near Bakhmut, 32-year-old AFP video journalist Arman Soldin was killed. He was posthumously awarded the highest civil award in France, the Legion of Honor.