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| - Two journalists working for the French daily Le Monde who were wounded during a rocket strike in Nagorny Karabakh are being evacuated, the French foreign ministry said Friday. "They have left Stepanakert and are being evacuated," a ministry official said, referring to the main city in the breakaway region. Le Monde said Thursday that reporter Allan Kaval and photographer Rafael Yaghobzadeh were injured when Azerbaijani forces fired rockets at the town of Martuni, where they were part of group of journalists that included a team from AFP. Two Armenian journalists were also hit in the attack, according to Armenian authorities. Armenia's ambassador to France later told AFP that both French journalists "were badly injured" and quickly operated on in the town's hospital. The Monde journalists arrived at a hospital in Armenia's capital of Yerevan on Friday morning, according to the Armenian news website hetq.am, citing the hospital's director. In a statement Friday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian thanked both his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts during telephone talks for their assistance in evacuating the journalists. Fighting in Nagorny Karabakh broke out last Sunday, the latest flare-up in a territorial conflict that has afflicted the Caucasus for decades. Azerbaijani forces on Friday struck Stepanakert, wounding "many" people, an Armenian official said. vl/js/sjw/lc
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