His disappearance had aroused very strong emotion. About eight years after the death of photojournalist Camille Lepage, killed in the Central African Republic, a first college was renamed in her name. The establishment was officially inaugurated this Wednesday in the town of Loirauxence, near Ancenis, about forty kilometers from Angers where the young woman was from.
A tribute was paid by the 450 students, in the presence of the reporter’s mother. A commemorative plaque was unveiled, while an exhibition featuring 15 photographs of Camille Lepage’s work was installed in the places “in order to continue to bring his work and his commitment to life”, explains the departmental council of Loire-Atlantique.
“She touched the hearts of our students”
Aged 26, Camille Lepage was assassinated on May 12, 2014 by an armed band controlling part of the territory, while she was reporting on the problem of diamond mining in the west of the Central African Republic, near the Cameroon border.
“Camille represents, for all of us, the values of solidarity and the struggle for peace. It represents the courage and the will to work, whatever the cost, for the defense of the most deprived. She touched the hearts of our students, ”explains Nathalie Facorat, principal of the college. The name of the photographer had been chosen by the students of Loirauxence as part of a global approach by the departmental council aimed at “better representation of women in the public space”.
At the end of 2019, the tragic fate of Camille Lepage had been told in the cinema through the feature film by Boris Lojkine entitled Camille.