War reporter killed after refusing to leave city

Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin, 56, died alongside French photojournalist Remi Ochlik, 28, when the house where they were staying was shelled by Syrian government forces yesterday morning. Sunday Times photographer Paul Conroy and French reporter Edith Bouvier were also injured in the attack.

Fellow journalists mourned the loss of US-born Ms Colvin, praising her fearlessness in repeatedly placing herself in danger in order to report on atrocities around the world.

Her mother Rosemarie said she remained in Homs despite being ordered to get out by her editor because of the risk, adding: “She had to stay. She wanted to finish one more story.”

Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Sunday Times, said she was “one of the most outstanding foreign correspondents of her generation”.

In her final dispatches, Ms Colvin sought to alert the world to the human tragedy unfolding in Homs, which has been devastated after weeks of intense shelling from President Assad’s forces.

In an interview with the BBC on Tuesday, she described watching a two-year-old boy who had been hit by shrapnel die in a makeshift clinic.