Injured French Reporter Urges Evacuation from Syria to Lebanon

A French reporter who was wounded in the Syrian city of Homs said Thursday she needs urgent medical attention and asked to be evacuated quickly, in a video posted online by anti-regime activists.

Edith Bouvier, a reporter for the French daily Le Figaro, made the appeal in the footage, sitting alongside French photojournalist William Daniels, who said he was not wounded but also keen to be extracted urgently.

"My leg is broken at the level of the femur, along its length and also horizontally. I need to be operated upon as soon as possible," said Bouvier, who appeared calm and coherent, even occasionally smiling weakly.

"The doctors here have treated me very well, as much as they are able, but they are not able to undertake surgical procedures," she said.

"I need a ceasefire and a medically-equipped vehicle, or at least one in good condition, that can get me to the Lebanese border so that I can be treated in the shortest possible time," she said, lying on a sofa under a blanket.

She is seen alongside a man in medical scrubs with a stethoscope who spoke briefly in Arabic to describe Bouvier's condition and repeat her request to be evacuated urgently. In the distance explosions can be heard.

Bouvier said the video was shot on Thursday at 3.00 pm (1200 GMT). It was posted on the YouTube file-sharing site and Syrian activists opposed to Bashar al-Assad's regime quickly emailed links to it to news organizations.

Daniels said he had not been hurt in the shelling which wounded his colleague and killed two other western journalists on Wednesday, but said that the situation was getting tougher, with no power and little food getting through during the siege.

"Our morale is good, she's strong, she's smiling," he said of his colleague, adding that he is a freelance on assignment for Le Figaro and Time magazine.

"I hope the French authorities can help us as quickly as possible because it's difficult here. We have no electricity, we don't have much to eat, bombs are still falling, we need to get out by medical evacuation."