2 Western journalists killed in Syria

France identified two Western reporters killed in Syria on Wednesday as veteran American war correspondent Marie Colvin of Britain's Sunday Times and freelance French photojournalist Remi Ochlik, Hurriyet Daily News cites Agence France-Presse as saying.

Colvin was a renowned reporter who had covered countless conflicts over 30 years and wore a distinctive eye patch after she was wounded in Sri Lanka. She was voted Foreign Correspondent of the Year in the 2010 British Press Awards.

Ochlik was a 28-year-old photographer represented by the IP3 agency, which he co-founded in Paris, who quit his studies aged 20 to report on Haiti and has since covered many of the recent upheavals in the Arab world.
 
France's Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said the pair had been fleeing a bombardment in the besieged rebel bastion of Homs when they were killed. "It's absolutely overwhelming, terrible," he said.