American War Reporter Marie Colvin Killed in Syria [View all]

http://www.wral.com/news/national_world/world/story/10763934/

By DANICA KIRKA, Associated Press

LONDON — Respected American journalist Marie Colvin, who spent decades reporting on conflicts from Sri Lanka to Syria, focusing on the suffering of women and children in wartime, died in a fierce shelling attack Wednesday in Syria.

Colvin, who was 57, was known for her courage behind the front lines and immediately recognizable for an eye patch that hid an injury suffered in a Sri Lankan ambush. She had been holed up in the besieged Syrian city of Homs. Sunday Times editor John Witherow confirmed her death during a "devastating bombardment by the Syrian army."

Colvin, from Oyster Bay, New York, had been a foreign correspondent for Britain's Sunday Times for the past two decades, making a specialty of reporting from the world's most dangerous places. Her final dispatch Tuesday from a cellar offering refuge for women and children hinted at the horrors that eventually took her own life.

"It is a city of the cold and hungry, echoing to exploding shells and bursts of gunfire," she wrote. "There are no telephones and the electricity has been cut off. ... Freezing rain fills potholes and snow drifts in through windows empty of glass. No shops are open, so families are sharing what they have with relatives and neighbors. Many of the dead and injured are those who risked foraging for food.

"Fearing the snipers' merciless eyes, families resorted last week to throwing bread across rooftops, or breaking through communal walls to pass unseen."

Colvin often focused on the plight of women and children in battles and Syria was no different. She gave interviews to major British broadcasters on the eve of her death, appealing for the world to notice the slaughter taking place.