VINCENNES: AFP photojournalist Christina Assi said she felt "incredible” support as she carried the Olympic Flame outside Paris Sunday, almost a year after being gravely wounded while reporting in Lebanon.
"I hope what we did today honors all the journalists and friends who have been killed this year,” said Lebanese national Assi, who was joined in the relay by AFP video colleague Dylan Collins, an American hurt in the same incident.
"It’s amazing and heartwarming to see all these people cheering after we survived a targeted attack as journalists,” added Assi, who completed her 200-metre stretch through the streets of Vincennes in a wheelchair.
Assi said that she wished slain Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and other journalists killed in the fighting "were here to witness this today”. "I wish it didn’t take such an attack to be participating and to be representing journalists,” she added, visibly tearing up.
Around 50 AFP journalists joined the crowd in Vincennes just east of Paris to cheer on Assi and Collins. Assi, 29, was wounded by shellfire on October 13, 2023 while covering cross-border clashes between the Zionist army and armed groups in southern Lebanon.
The tank round, fired by a Zionist unit according to an in-depth AFP investigation, killed Reuters colleague Abdallah and wounded the six other journalists on the scene. Assi had to have her right leg amputated. Collins, 36, was also wounded that day, soon after an injury suffered in Ukraine.
Assi said that her immediate plans are "to focus on my rehabilitation and stand up again. That’s how I’m going to get my justice.” "It was tremendously moving to see Christina and Dylan carrying the flame,” AFP editor-in-chief Phil Chetwynd said. "Their courage in the face of unimaginable adversity is such an eloquent expression of the Olympic spirit. Everyone at AFP is so proud,” he added. — AFP