Marie Colvin

Happy International Woman’s Day! Our Woman of the Week for today is Marie Colvin!

Born and raised in Queens, Marie Colvin is known for her extensive foreign affairs coverage for The Sunday Times. From 1985 until her death in 2012, Marie worked as a war correspondent in Libya (where she was the first to interview Muammar Gaddafi after the after Operation El Dorado Canyon), Chechnya, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, East Timor, Egypt, Palestine and Iraq.

While she was reporting on the Sri Lankan Civil War, she lost her left eye after being struck by a grenade attempting to cross from a Tamil Tigers-controlled area to a Government-controlled area. She was shot after shouting that she was a journalist. Despite the injuries she endured, Marie still managed to write a 3,000 word article on time to meet the deadline.

Throughout her career, Marie would continue to risk her life to report on the injustices and violence suffered in various war fronts, with her reporting of ware refugees besieged in East Timor embarrassing the UN into evacuating the refugees.

While reporting in Syria on the Civil War, she was killed along with photojournalist Rémi Ochlik by an explosive device after the government attempted to prevent any entry of foreign journalists. In her speech during a service for the war wounded at St Bride’s church, Marie recalls losing her eye, and the injury her fellow war photo journalist Joao Silva suffered on the field, and highlights the significance and importance of the work of war journalists and the risks they take. She talks about the history of war reporting and how it ultimately falls on having faith enough people, whether they are in the government, military or an ordinary citizen will care about what you are reporting and make a difference.