2 foreign journalists killed in Syria

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

The journalists 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.As he was leaving Elysee  after weekly cabinet meeting, French Foreign minister Alain Juppe called the killing a “murder” and said he would investigate what happened.

“I would like to express my condolences to the families, namely to that of the French journalist. I will try to know exactly what the conditions of this murder were — in any case of this death. It’s another  demonstration of the degradation of the situation in Syria and of a repression that is more and more intolerable. I hope that Friday at the Friends of Syria meeting in Tunis we will be able to move towards a peaceful solution of the situation,” he said.

Both journalists 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.

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.

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.

Ochlik is the second French journalist killed in Homs.

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