(AFP) – Former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi has been injured while visiting Luxembourg to commemorate a key World War II battle and was admitted to hospital for treatment, her office said Friday. The 84-year-old Democrat was in the Grand Duchy with a bipartisan congressional delegation to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, her spokesman Ian Krager said in a statement.
“Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi sustained an injury during an official engagement and was admitted to the hospital for evaluation,” he said. Pelosi “is currently receiving excellent treatment,” said Krager, adding that “she continues to work and regrets that she is unable to attend the remainder” of the delegation’s engagements.
The statement did not detail Pelosi’s injuries, but US media, citing unnamed insiders, reported that she had tripped descending marble stairs and had fallen hard, breaking her hip. Allies in Pelosi’s home state of California and in Washington said doctors were confident the damage could be repaired with a routine operation, according to The New York Times.
One of America’s most influential Democrats and the first woman to become speaker of the House of Representatives, Pelosi stepped down last year from her second stint in the post. She is still an elected representative from California and retains considerable influence on Capitol Hill.
Pelosi had previously travelled in 2019 to attend the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, the last major German offensive on the Western Front during World War II. The battle raged for six weeks in icy weather across the Ardennes region between Belgium and Luxembourg — drawing in 600,000 American and 25,000 British troops against 400,000 Germans — until the Allies prevailed in January 1945.
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