UKRAINE: FUNERAL OF REUTERS CAMERAMAN TARAS PROTSYUK KILLED FOLLOWING U.S SHELLING OF PALESTINE HOTEL IN BAGHDAD

Record ID: 176957

  • Title: UKRAINE: FUNERAL OF REUTERS CAMERAMAN TARAS PROTSYUK KILLED FOLLOWING U.S SHELLING OF PALESTINE HOTEL IN BAGHDAD
  • Date: 13th April 2003
  • Summary: (EU) KIEV, UKRAINE (APRIL 13, 2003) (REUTERS -- ACCESS ALL) 1. TOPSHOT OF BODY OF REUTERS TELEVISION CAMERAMAN TARAS PROTSYUK LYING IN COFFIN INSIDE CHURCH SURROUNDED BY MOURNERS 0.04 2. SMV RELATIVES OF PROTSYUK 0.07 3. SMV FRIENDS OF PROTSYUK 0.11 4. WIDE OF COFFIN WITH MOURNERS GATHERED AROUND IT 0.14 5. SCU PROTSYUK'S WIDOW, LIDIA 0.17 6. VARIOUS, PHOTOGRAPH OF TARAS PROTSYUK, PULL-OUT TO MOURNERS STANDING IN SILENCE AROUND HIS COFFIN 0.26 7. CLOSE OF GRECO-CATHOLIC PRIEST HOLDING CROSS AT BAYKOVE CEMETERY 0.30 8. SLV PALLBEARERS CARRYING BODY IN UNCOVERED COFFIN TO PLATFORM 0.37 9. SMV FAMILY OF PROTSYUK 0.42 10. SMV PRIEST BLESSING BODY 0.48 11. SCU FATHER OF PROTSYUK 0.54 12. SMV PRIEST WALKI NG BY PROTSYUK'S WIDOW, LIDIA 1.02 13. SLV PRIEST HOLDING CROSS OVER BODY 1.10 14. SMV MOURNER HOLDING PHOTOGRAPH OF PROTSYUK AT HEAD OF OPEN COFFIN 1.15 15. SCU PROTSYUK'S WIDOW, LIDIA 1.23 16. SLV FATHER APPROACHING BODY, KISSING IT AND WEEPING SAYING "MY SON! MY SON!" 1.45 17. SMV WIDOW KISSING BODY 2.01 18. SMV FAMILY MEMBER KISSING BODY 2.08 19. SMV FRIEND KISSING BODY AND RETURNING TO CROWD, WEEPING 2.21 20. PAN UP TO CROSS 2.26 21. SLV MOURNERS WALKING PAST BODY WITH CANDLES 2.32 22. SLV PALLBEARERS CARRYING BODY INTO CEMETERY FOLLOWED BY FAMILY AND MOURNERS 3.03 (EU) VARIOUS LOCATIONS (FILE) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 23. VARIOUS STILL PHOTOGRAPHS OF TARAS PROTSYUK (4 SHOTS) 3.36 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 28th April 2003 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: KIEV, UKRAINE
  • Country: Ukraine
  • Reuters ID: LVAP74JBNO8U7X68A8LLPBNRHTD
  • Story Text: Funeral services have been held in Kiev, Ukraine for
    Taras Protsyuk, the Reuters Television cameraman killed
    when a U.S. tank shell hit a Baghdad hotel.



    Relatives and friends bade a final farewell on Sunday
    (April 13) to Reuters Television journalist Taras Protsyuk, a
    Ukrainian national based in Warsaw, who died after a U.S. tank
    fired at the Palestine hotel in Baghdad on Tuesday (April 8).

    Protsyuk, 35, and Spanish Telecinco cameraman Jose Couso,
    37, were both killed and three other Reuters staff were
    wounded in the shelling on the hotel, base for much of the
    foreign media in the Iraqi capital.

    Mourners on Sunday attended funeral services in St Basil's
    church and at Baykove cemetery in the the Ukrainian capital,
    Kiev, to pay their last respects.

    Born in 1968 in the western Ukrainian city of Ivano
    Frankovsk, Protsyuk joined Reuters as a cameraman in Kiev in
    1993.

    As a cameraman, editor and reporter, he served with
    distinction in most of the major recent conflicts in Europe
    and central Asia, travelling to Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo,
    Macedonia, Pakistan and Afghanistan to gather fast,
    high-quality frontline coverage.

    Son of an oil company engineer, Taras graduated from high
    school hoping to join the Soviet Union's space programme, and
    enrolled at the Leningrad Military Academy to study
    aeronautical engineering.

    But the fifth and final year of Taras' degree in 1990
    coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and with it
    much of the communist state's interest in space. Rather than
    be drafted into the new Russian army, Taras quit his studies
    and began freelancing as a cameraman.

    Over the next decade, he blossomed in that most perilous
    of roles - the combat journalist.

    In 1999, he moved to Warsaw with his wife and young son.

    Speaking fluent Arabic learned in military school, Taras
    was an obvious choice to join the Reuters multi-media team
    assembled in Baghdad for the war on Iraq.

    For the two months before his death, he had been a vital
    member of the team - committed, but not obsessed, brave, but
    not reckless and unfailingly positive.

    Taras was also determined to reflect the human cost of the
    decade of sanctions on Iraq and of the conflict itself.

    Reuters Editor-in-Chief Geert Linnebank said: "We are
    devastated by the death of Taras, who had distinguished
    himself with his highly professional coverage in some of the
    most violent conflicts of the past decade."
    Distraught colleagues in the region remembered Taras as
    "full of life - the most enthusiastic, inexhaustible friend."
    Friends and colleagues in Russia said he had remained a
    kind and gentle man despite the grim events he often
    witnessed.

    U.S. forces said one of their tanks had fired on the
    Palestine Hotel on Tuesday after coming under sniper and
    rocket fire. Journalists said they heard no such fire from the
    hotel.

    U.S. military officials expressed regret at the incident.

    Three other Reuters staff were injured in the blast. Samia
    Nakhoul, Lebanese-born Gulf bureau chief, and Iraqi
    photographer Faleh Kheiber were both treated in hospital for
    facial and head wounds and concussion.

    Television cameraman and satellite dish coordinator Paul
    Pasquale, from Britain, was taken to hospital with leg, arm
    and head injuries but doctors said he was not in danger.

    Taras is survived by his wife Lidia and eight-year-old son
    Denis.

    (lh/mr)

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