Tonight a candle burns in St Bride's, the journalists' church in London, in memory of Marie Colvin, She was a distinguished war correspondent who was working for the Sunday Times but who also gave reports into a number of broadcast stations. She passed away overnight.
No, she did not "pass away", she died in the line of duty. She was killed. No she was murdered, along with French photojournalist Remi Ochlik. Who fired the missile that slammed into the makeshift press center they were in is irrelevant.
Bashar Al-Assad, Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintau, j'accuse. This infernal trinity have the blood of Marie Colvin and Remi Ochik on their hands. Al-Assad may be the butcher but Putin placed the knife in his hands and Hu joined with him in stopping the world preventing another Sarajevo, another Srebrenica.
Colvin's reports have shocked the world into taking action against such massacres. She was aware of the dangers she faced. While covering the fighting in Sri Lanka, a soldier threw a grenade at her. Seriously injured she lost the sight in her left eye. Her reporting of the dark corners of war undoubtedly saved lives.
In 2001. during a church service at St Bride's to commemorate journalists killed reporting she summed up what she saw as her duty.
Our mission is to report these horrors of war with accuracy and without prejudice
Her last report in the Sunday Times is a simple, powerful telling of the truths she sought to bring to the world's attention.
On the lips of everyone was the question: “Why have we been abandoned by the world?”
Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general of the United Nations, said last week: “We see neighbourhoods shelled indiscriminately, hospitals used as torture centres, children as young as 10 years old killed and abused. We see almost certainly crimes against humanity.” Yet the international community has not come to the aid of the innocent caught in this hell.
Abdel Majid, 20, who was helping to rescue the wounded from bombed buildings, made a simple plea. “Please tell the world they must help us,” he said, shaking, with haunted eyes. “Just stop the bombing. Please, just stop the shelling.”