Two western Journalists killed in Syria

Two Western journalists were killed in the besieged Syrian city of Homs today when shells hit the house they were staying in, opposition activists and witnesses said.

They were Marie Colvin, an American working for Britain’s Sunday Times, and French photographer Remi Ochlik, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said.

A witness contacted by Reuters from Amman said shells hit the house in the Baba Amro district of Homs in which they were staying and a rocket hit them when they tried to escape.

Both were veteran correspondents of wars in the Middle East and elsewhere. Colvin was a fearless reporter who lost an eye when she suffered a shrapnel wound while working in Sri Lanka in 2001. In public appearances after that attack, she wore a black eye patch.

Ochlik was born in France in 1983 and first covered conflict in Haiti at the age of 20. Most recently he photographed the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

Video broadcast from Homs showed the bodies among the rubble, one with its legs severed by shrapnel.

Activists in Homs say at least two other foreign journalists were wounded. One was named as British photographer Paul Conroy. Another, a female American journalist, is in a very serious condition, they said.

“Up to this point we have two dead. They are still under the rubble because the shelling hasn’t stopped,” an activist in Homs named Omar told Reuters. “No one can get close to the house.”

“There is another American female journalist who is in a really serious condition, she really needs urgent care,” Omar added. The house was hit by more than 10 rockets, he said.

Pro-opposition areas of Homs have been under a sustained bombardment from government forces since Feb. 3. Several hundred people have been killed, activists say.

The Syrian conflict is especially dangerous for journalists to cover as opposition and rebel forces are for the most part bottled up in enclaves. Last week New York Times reporter Anthony Shadid died of an asthma attack while trying to reach an opposition zone.  

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