Walking in the same dirt his father did 50 years ago brews a stew of emotions for Evan Shackleton.

This is the dirt, in the Timor-Leste border town of Balibo, were his father laid his last footprints.

"When I came here, I got that feeling," he said.

"That feeling you get in your throat, when you think I can't breathe properly, and your voice is quivering and you want your little bottom lip to stop wobbling.

" It still hurts. "

Evan's father, Channel 7 reporter Greg Shackleton, was murdered by Indonesian forces 50 years ago today, along with Gary Cunningham, Brian Peters, Malcolm Rennie and Anthony Stewart, as they sought to film the Indonesian invasion of what was then East Timor.

They've been immortalised as the Balibo Five.

ABC journalist Roger East, who came to Timor to investi

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