Homs – never again!

It is with enormous sadness and grief that we learned today (Wednesday, February 22, 2012) that two Western journalists had been killed in attacks targeting a press center in the city of Homs run by activists opposing the Syrian regime. Rémi Ochlik, a French citizen, and Mary Colvin, a US citizen, have had their lives tragically cut short.

Mary Colvin (56), based in London, was a correspondent for the Sunday Times who had covered the Middle East for more than twenty years, and other conflict zones including Timor, Chechnya, Kosovo and Sri Lanka.

Rémi Ochlik was only 28; he had covered the 2011 revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and had just been awarded the 2012 World Press Photo first prize (in the "Stories/General News category") for work on Libya. He should have been presented with the prize in Amsterdam in April.

His photos have been published extensively by the international media.

Rémi was a loyal friend of Visa pour l'Image where he was seen as a young photojournalist with enormous talent, destined to be one of the truly great reporters of the future.

The drama has occurred less than two months after the death on January 11 of the French feature reporter Gilles Jacquier, the first Western journalist killed in Syria, ten months after the popular uprising against Bashar al-Assad's regime began.

We wish to express our heartfelt condolences to the friends and families of both victims.

The entire Visa pour l'Image - Perpignan teamon the way to be translated !