French president orders immediate despatch of team to 'shine light on circumstances of assassination' of 26-year-old

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

A French photojournalist has been killed in the Central African Republic, the presidential palace announced on Tuesday evening.

The body of Camille Lepage, 26, from Angers, was discovered by French troops patrolling in the Bouar region in the west of the country in a vehicle driven by militia from the anti-balaka (anti-machete) group.

A week ago, in her last tweet on 6 May, Lepage had written that she was: "Travelling with the anti-balaka to Amada Gaza, about 120km from Berberati.

"We left at 3.30am to avoid the Misca [International Support Mission to the Central African Republic] checkpoints and it took us eight hours by motorbike as there is no proper roads to reach the village. In the region of Amada Gaza, 150 people were killed by the Seleka [an alliance of rebel militia factions] between March and now.

"Another attack took place on Sunday killing 6 people, the anti-balaka Colonel Rock decides to send his elements there to patrol around and take people who fled the bush back to their homes safely."

On Tuesday, the Elysée said the French president, François Hollande, had ordered "the immediate despatch of a French team and police from the African force deployed in the CAR to the scene.

"All necessary means will be deployed to shine light on the circumstances of this assassination and find the killers of our compatriot," it said in a statement.

The use of the word assassinat in French appears to suggest that Paris has information that the young woman was targeted deliberately and in cold blood.

Lepage had moved to Juba in South Sudan in July 2012, after completing a journalism degree at Solent University in Southampton, but had spent the last few months working in the CAR.

Her work has been published in the Guardian, Le Monde, the Sunday Times, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and used by the BBC.

In an interview with the photographic blog PetaPixel last October, Lepage spoke about her ongoing projects, You Will Forget Me and Vanishing Youth, that capture the violence of South Sudan.

"Since I was very little, I've always wanted to go and live in a place where no one else wants to go, and cover in-depth conflict related stories … I can't accept that people's tragedies are silenced simply because no one can make money out of them."

Of her life in South Sudan, she said: "The fact that I live in South Sudan for a while really helps. I live in a local house in a local neighbourhood, with no electricity and little comfort, so I don't see myself as being very different from them [local people]."

She ends the interview: "I'm currently in the Central African Republic, working on a new photography project there for a few months before heading back to South Sudan and Sudan."

The anti-balaka are an umbrella group of various militia – mostly uneducated Christian youths – engaged in armed struggle against Seleka rebels, made up of mostly Muslim fighters, many of them mercenaries from neighbouring countries.