A jornalista Marie Colvin, que ontem foi morta na Síria, já tinha perdido a visão no olho esquerdo quando cobria a guerra civil no Sri Lanka, em 2001. Os estilhaços do rebentamento dessa bomba não a assustaram ao ponto de desistir de fazer aquilo que mais amava: ser testemunha, em tempo real, dos conflitos que moldam o nosso mundo. Por duas vezes foi eleita Enviada Especial do Ano, nos British Press Awards, por duas vezes também ganhou o Prémio Coragem, da International Women's Media Foundation.
Especializou-se no Médio Oriente mas correu para países como a Chechénia, o Kosovo ou a Serra Leoa quando outros tudo dariam para de lá sair. Entrou também em Timor-Leste, em 1999, quando a Indonésia ainda espalhava o terror pelas ruas de Díli. No ano passado passou meses na Líbia, conseguindo a primeira entrevista de Kadafi, no auge da revolução.
Aqui pode ler-se uma selecção de trabalhos de Marie, que assinava no Sunday Times desde 1985.
Esta foi a sua última história, enviada para Londres depois de entrar ilegalmente na Síria, na traseira de uma pequena motorizada, e de se ter juntado aos combatentes que desafiam o regime, em Homs.
Ao lado de Marie Colvin morreu o fotojornalista Rémi Ochlik, com quem também se tinha cruzado na Líbia (esse trabalho acabara de valer-lhe o prémio na categoria Notícias do World Press Photo 2012).
‘We live in fear of a massacre'
Marie Colvin was the only British journalist reporting from inside the besieged Syrian enclave of Baba Amr. This is her final report
They call it the widows’ basement. Crammed amid makeshift beds and scattered belongings are frightened women and children trapped in the horror of Homs, the Syrian city shaken by two weeks of relentless bombardment.
Among the 300 huddling in this wood factory cellar in the besieged district of Baba Amr is 20-year-old Noor, who lost her husband and her home to the shells and rockets.
“Our house was hit by a rocket so 17 of us were staying in one room,” she recalls as Mimi, her three-year-old daughter, and Mohamed, her five-year-old son, cling to her abaya.
“We had had nothing but sugar and water for two days and my husband went to try to find food.” It was the last time she saw Maziad, 30, who had worked in a mobile phone repair shop. “He was torn to pieces by a mortar shell.”
For Noor, it was a double tragedy. Adnan, her 27-year-old brother, was killed at Maziad’s side.
Everyone in the cellar has a similar story of hardship or death. The refuge was chosen because it is one of the few basements in Baba Amr. Foam mattresses are piled against the walls and the children have not seen the light of day since the siege began on February 4. Most families fled their homes with only the clothes on their backs.
The city is running perilously short of supplies and the only food here is rice, tea and some tins of tuna delivered by a local sheikh who looted them from a bombed-out supermarket.
A baby born in the basement last week looked as shellshocked as her mother, Fatima, 19, who fled there when her family’s single-storey house was obliterated. “We survived by a miracle,” she whispers. Fatima is so traumatised that she cannot breastfeed, so the baby has been fed only sugar and water; there is no formula milk.
Fatima may or may not be a widow. Her husband, a shepherd, was in the countryside when the siege started with a ferocious barrage and she has heard no word of him since.
Ler mais...
Among the 300 huddling in this wood factory cellar in the besieged district of Baba Amr is 20-year-old Noor, who lost her husband and her home to the shells and rockets.
“Our house was hit by a rocket so 17 of us were staying in one room,” she recalls as Mimi, her three-year-old daughter, and Mohamed, her five-year-old son, cling to her abaya.
“We had had nothing but sugar and water for two days and my husband went to try to find food.” It was the last time she saw Maziad, 30, who had worked in a mobile phone repair shop. “He was torn to pieces by a mortar shell.”
For Noor, it was a double tragedy. Adnan, her 27-year-old brother, was killed at Maziad’s side.
Everyone in the cellar has a similar story of hardship or death. The refuge was chosen because it is one of the few basements in Baba Amr. Foam mattresses are piled against the walls and the children have not seen the light of day since the siege began on February 4. Most families fled their homes with only the clothes on their backs.
The city is running perilously short of supplies and the only food here is rice, tea and some tins of tuna delivered by a local sheikh who looted them from a bombed-out supermarket.
A baby born in the basement last week looked as shellshocked as her mother, Fatima, 19, who fled there when her family’s single-storey house was obliterated. “We survived by a miracle,” she whispers. Fatima is so traumatised that she cannot breastfeed, so the baby has been fed only sugar and water; there is no formula milk.
Fatima may or may not be a widow. Her husband, a shepherd, was in the countryside when the siege started with a ferocious barrage and she has heard no word of him since.
Ler mais...
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