Added: Feb 23, 2012

From: voltokunchen

Duration: 2:15

The Sunday Times reporter, Marie Colvin, has been tragically killed in Syria. See another video here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuXvbs6HHX8 Marie Colvin, one of the most eminent war correspondents of her generation, was killed yesterday along with Remi Ochlik, an award winning photographer from France, while covering the siege of the Syrian city of Homs Two other journalists, including Paul Conroy, a photographer who had also been working for the Sunday Times with Colvin, was injured when the house where they were staying was hit by incoming fire. Last night fellow journalists, human rights activists and international statesmen condemned the killings amid accusations that the regime of Bashar al-Assad knew that the building apparently targeted was being used by the foreign media. Colvin had written a powerful and poignant dispatch from Homs, which had become a symbol of resistance in the uprising for her newspaper describing the suffering being inflicted on the population. She had also appeared on a number of international broadcast networks to accuse the regime of murder. She accused the regime of peddling "complete and utter lie that they are only targeting terrorists." Describing what was happening as "absolutely sickening", she continued "The Syrian army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians."' Last night a French reporter with the Liberation newspaper, Liberation, Jean-Pierre Perrin, who had been with Colvin in Homs last week, claimed they had been told that the Syrian Army was "deliberately" going to shell their centre. There were also reports, unconfirmed, that intercepted communications between regime officers contained "threats to kill foreign journalists". Last night, the government in Damascus said that it was unaware of any foreign journalists working in the country; a bizarre claim given the number of stories published in any number of international newspapers carrying a dateline from inside the country. Marie used both steeliness and charm seamlessly in pursuit of stories. Stopped at a checkpoint after the fall of Tripoli in Libya last year she got us past a particularly obdurate militia commander by browbeating him. But then she won him over enough to have him ask for his picture to be taken with her. "You never know we might need him on the way back" she pointed out. She was fiercely proud of what the best kind of journalism could achieve. "You hear all this talk of about the meaning of the media, the need for integrity etc" she said while discussing the Leveson inquiry recently. "But isn't it quite simple? You just try to find out the truth of what's going on and report it the best way you can. And because we are kind of romantic, our sympathy goes towards the underdog." Marie was also adamant, however, that it was very necessary to relax at times during tough assignments and did not take kindly if she thought this was being unfairly halted. One night in Tunis at the start of the Arab Spring, her reaction to us being refused a late drink was to tell the waiter "If you don't serve us I warn you I will take off my eye-patch". We were served with alacrity. Behind her hard and tough professional image, Marie was a great socialiser often looking highly glamorous in designer clothes in very smart parties. She had a huge number of well connected and fashionable friends but was the opposite of a "name dropper". She could organize a party anywhere. A fond memory is of a dinner at the BBC house in Kabul when Marie decided that everyone was being far too serious and grown-up. So she got the furniture pulled back, the carpet pulled out and got everyone up for not very refined but highly enthusiastic dancing. The tributes poured in yesterday. Her paper's editor John Witherow said: "Marie was an extraordinary figure in the life of the Sunday Times, driven by a passion to cover wars in the belief that what she did mattered." Mr Witherow said the paper was making every effort to recover her body from Homs. Foreign Secretary William Hague, said: "Marie Colvin embodied the highest values of journalism throughout her long and distinguished career as a foreign correspondent..." To fellow journalists Marie was a wonderful and warm colleague as well as a brave and brilliant correspondent. The shock of her death was particularly profound because to me, and some others, she had seemed indestructible. The value that someone like Marie brought to shedding light in dark places was described to me yesterday by an exile from Homs now living in a refugee camp at the Syrian side of the border. Wassim Sabagh, said: "Without people like her the outside word simply would not know what is going on and our terrible situation will never end... We are so sorry about what happened."

Channel: News

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