Photojournalist Sira Esclasans has been injured this evening whilst covering the protests in Barcelona for El Nacional. She was working in front of the Catalan interior ministry when she was hit in the leg by a foam bullet fired by Mossos d'Esquadra Catalan police officers.
"In front of the interior ministry, Mossos have fired foam bullets despite having the press just in front of them and with accreditation. A bullet has bounced just next to my left leg whilst I was working," she wrote on Twitter. Journalists covering the protests are identified by at least a bright orange armband (visible in the second tweet below).
Davant la Conselleria d'Interior @mossos ha disparat bales de foam tot i tenir la premsa just davant i acreditada. Una bala ha rebotat a menys d'un pam de la meva cama esquerra mentre estava treballant. Brutal feina dels @SanitarisxRep pic.twitter.com/2z0APyeXvW
— Sira Esclasans (@siraesca) October 16, 2019
After being hit, she went to the volunteers Sanitaris per la República (Nurses for the Republic), who she thanked for their "incredible work" seeing to her wound.
Sanitaris atenen una companya fotoperiodista que ha rebut l'impacte d'una pilota de goma o projectil de foam a la cama al passeig de Sant Joan. Anava identificada amb el braçalet de premsa @Catinformacio @324cat #ProuAgressionsPeriodistes pic.twitter.com/JDNnlV7hCM
— Nil Via (@Nil_Via) October 16, 2019
Translation: "Sanitaris are attending to a journalist colleague who has been hit by a rubber bullet or foam projectile in the leg on passeig de Sant Joan. She was identified by a press armband."