UK reporter killed in Homs siege (From Your Local Guardian)

UK reporter killed in Homs siege

12:11pm Wednesday 22nd February 2012 in National News © Press Association 2011

Award-winning Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin has been killed in the besieged Syrian city of Homs.

The veteran foreign correspondent died alongside French photographer Remi Ochlik when the house where they were staying in came under fire.

US-born Ms Colvin was the only British newspaper reporter in the opposition stronghold of Homs, which has come under repeated heavy shelling by government forces.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it is investigating reports that a British photographer was also injured in the incident.

In her final dispatches, Ms Colvin sought to alert the world to the human tragedy unfolding in Homs, a leading focus of unrest in the 11-month uprising against Syrian president Bashar Assad.

She told the BBC on Tuesday: "I watched a little baby die today - absolutely horrific, just a two-year-old been hit, they stripped it and found the shrapnel had gone into the left chest. The doctor just said 'I can't do anything'. His little tummy just kept heaving until he died. That is happening over and over and over."

Describing the situation in Homs as "absolutely sickening", she said: "There's just shells, rockets and tank fire pouring into civilian areas of this city, and it's just unrelenting."

In a front-page article published in the Sunday Times at the weekend, Ms Colvin reported that wounded civilians in the Baba Amr area of Homs were being treated by a vet because no doctors were available.

Over her distinguished career, Ms Colvin, from Oyster Bay, New York, reported on conflicts around the world, including in Kosovo, Chechnya and Sierra Leone. She wore a black eyepatch after losing an eye when she was wounded by shrapnel while covering Sri Lanka's civil war in 2001.

Addressing a memorial service in November 2010 for British journalists killed reporting conflicts, Ms Colvin summarised the foreign correspondent's job succinctly: "Journalists covering combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes they pay the ultimate price."