Marie Colvin | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Marie Catherine Colvin (1956-01-12)January 12, 1956 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | February 22, 2012(2012-02-22) (aged 56) Homs, Syria |
| Cause of death | Bombardment |
| Education | Yale University (BA) |
| Occupation | War correspondent |
| Years active | 1979–2012 |
| Spouse(s) | Patrick Bishop (divorced) |
| Website | mariecolvin.org |
Marie Catherine Colvin (January 12, 1956 – February 22, 2012) was an American journalist who worked as a foreign affairs correspondent[1] for the British newspaperThe Sunday Times from 1985 until her death. She was one of the most prominent warcorrespondents of her generation, widely recognized for her extensive coverage on the frontlines of various conflicts across the globe.[2] On February 22, 2012, while she was covering thesiege of Homs alongside the French photojournalistRémi Ochlik, the pair were killed in a targeted attack by Syrian government forces.[3]
After her death,Stony Brook University established the Marie Colvin Center for International Reporting in her honor. Her family also established the Marie Colvin Memorial Fund through the Long Island Community Foundation, which strives to give donations in Marie's name in honor of herhumanitarianism.[4]
In July 2016, lawyers representing Colvin's family filed acivil action against theSyrian Arab Republic in theUS District Court for the District of Columbia, claiming they had obtained proof that the Syrian government had directly ordered herassassination. In a verdict issued in 2019, the Columbia District Court found theAssad regime guilty of "extrajudicial killing", terming it as an "unconscionable crime" deliberately committed by the government, and mandated Syria to pay Colvin's family $302 million in compensation for the damages.[5] In 2025, the French government issued arrest warrants forBashar al-Assad and other high ranking Ba’athist Syrian officials.
Marie Colvin was born inAstoria,Queens, New York, and grew up inEast Norwich in the town ofOyster Bay,Nassau County, onLong Island. Her father, William J. Colvin, was aMarine Corps veteran ofWWII and an English teacher inNew York City public schools. He was also active inDemocratic politics inNassau County. He served as Deputy County Executive under Eugene Nickerson. Her mother, Rosemarie Marron Colvin, was a high school guidance counselor in Long Island public schools. Marie has two brothers, William and Michael, and two sisters, Aileen and Catherine.[6] She graduated fromOyster Bay High School in 1974,[7] spending her junior year of high school abroad on an exchange program in Brazil and later attendedYale University. She was an anthropology major but took a course with thePulitzer Prize-winning writerJohn Hersey.
Colvin also started writing for theYale Daily News "and decided to be ajournalist," her mother said. She graduated with abachelor's degree inanthropology in 1978.[8][9] During her time at Yale, Colvin was known for her strong personality and quickly established herself as a "noise-maker" on campus.[10]
Colvin worked briefly for a labor union inNew York City, before starting her journalism career withUnited Press International (UPI), a year after graduating from Yale.[11] She worked for UPI first inTrenton, then New York and Washington. In 1984, Colvin was appointed Paris bureau manager for UPI, before moving toThe Sunday Times in 1985.[12]
From 1986, she was the newspaper's Middle East correspondent, and then from 1995 was the Foreign Affairs correspondent. In 1986, she was the first to interview Libyan leaderMuammar Gaddafi afterOperation El Dorado Canyon.[13] Gaddafi said in this interview that he was at home when U.S. planes bombed Tripoli in April 1986, and that he helped rescue his wife and children while "the house was coming down around us". Gaddafi also said reconciliation between Libya and the United States was impossible so long asRonald Reagan was in the White House. "I have nothing to say to him (Reagan)", he said, "because he is mad. He is foolish. He is an Israeli dog."
In May 1988, Colvin made anextended appearance on theChannel 4 discussion programmeAfter Dark, alongsideAnton Shammas,Gerald Kaufman,Moshe Amirav,Nadia Hijab and others.
Specialising in the Middle East, she also covered conflicts inChechnya,Serbia,Sierra Leone,Zimbabwe,Sri Lanka andEast Timor.In 1999 in East Timor, she was credited with saving the lives of 1,500 women and children from a compound besieged byIndonesian-backed forces. Refusing to abandon them, she stayed witha United Nations force, reporting in her newspaper and on television.[14] They were evacuated after four days. She won theInternational Women's Media Foundation award for Courage in Journalism for her coverage of Kosovo and Chechnya.[15][16] She wrote and produced documentaries, includingArafat: Behind the Myth for the BBC.[17] She is featured in the 2005 documentary filmBearing Witness.
Colvin lost the sight in her left eye while reporting on theSri Lankan Civil War. She was struck by a blast from aSri Lankan Armyrocket-propelled grenade (RPG) on April 16, 2001, while crossing from aTamil Tigers-controlled area to a Government-controlled area; thereafter she wore aneyepatch.[18][19] She was attacked even after calling out "journalist, journalist!"[20][3][21][22] She toldLindsey Hilsum ofChannel 4 News that her attacker "knew what he was doing".[23] Despite sustaining serious injuries, Colvin, who was 45 at the time, managed to write a 3,000 word article on time to meet the deadline.[24] She had walked over 30 miles (48 km) through theVanni jungle with her Tamil guides to evade government troops; she reported on the humanitarian disaster in the northern Tamil region, including a government blockade of food, medical supplies and prevention of foreign journalist access to the area for six years to cover the war.[14][22][23] Colvin later sufferedpost traumatic stress disorder and required hospitalisation following her injuries.
She was also a witness and an intermediary during the final days of the war in Sri Lanka and reported onwar crimes against Tamils that were committed during this phase.[22] Several days after her wounding, the Sri Lankan government said it would allow foreign journalists to travel in rebel-held zones. The director of Government information, Ariya Rubasinghe, stated that: "Journalists can go, we have not debarred them, but they must be fully aware of and accept the risk to their lives."[25]
In 2011, while reporting on theArab Spring in Tunisia, Egypt andLibya, she was offered an opportunity to interview Gaddafi again, along with two other journalists that she could nominate. For Gaddafi's first international interview since the start of the war, Colvin took alongChristiane Amanpour ofABC News[26] andJeremy Bowen ofBBC News.[14][27]
Colvin noted the importance of shining a light on "humanity in extremes, pushed to the unendurable", stating: "My job is to bear witness. I have never been interested in knowing what make of plane had just bombed a village or whether the artillery that fired at it was 120mm or 155mm."[14]
Colvin twice married journalist Patrick Bishop; both marriages ended in divorce. She also married aBolivian journalist,Juan Carlos Gumucio, a correspondent for the Spanish newspaperEl País in Beirut during theLebanese Civil War. He took his own life in February 2002 in Bolivia, following depression and alcoholism.
Colvin lived inHammersmith, West London.[28]
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In February 2012, Colvin crossed into Syria on the back of amotocross motorcycle, ignoring the Syrian government's attempts to prevent foreign journalists from entering Syria to cover theSyrian Civil War without authorization. Colvin was stationed in the westernBaba Amr district of the city ofHoms. Upon arriving the city, she was welcomed by local activists keen to reveal the ongoing destruction of Homs to the world. Colvin reported that pro-Assad forces were repeatedly firing on her car with grenades and machine guns, forcing her to take cover in emptied buildings.[29][14] In her last article published in theSunday Times on 19 February 2012, Colvin wrote:
"The scale of human tragedy in the city is immense. The inhabitants are living in terror. Almost every family seems to have suffered the death or injury of a loved one."[30]
Colvin made her last broadcast on the evening of February 21, appearing on theBBC,Channel 4,CNN andITN News viasatellite phone. She described "merciless" shelling and sniper attacks against civilian buildings and people on the streets of Homs by Syrian forces, expressing immense shock at the utter disregard of the government troops for the lives of the city residents.[14][31] Speaking toAnderson Cooper hours before her death, Colvin described the bombardment of Homs as the worst conflict she had ever experienced.[32] Reporting on her situation, Colvin told Cooper:
"Every civilian house on this street has been hit. We're talking about a very poor popular neighborhood. The top floor of the building I'm in has been hit, in fact, totally destroyed. There are no military targets here... There arerockets, shells, tank shells,anti-aircraft being fired in parallel lines into the city. TheSyrian Army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians."[33]
Colvin and photojournalistRémi Ochlik were killed bydirect shelling and rocket attacks from security forces directed at theirtemporary media center on February 22.[14][34] Another photographer,Paul Conroy, and French journalist Edith Bouvier ofLe Figaro were also injured during the attacks.[35] The nature of the attacks aroused suspicions that the Syrian government deliberately bombed the safehouses of the journalists through satellite tracking.[34] Nine other individuals were also killed as a result of the attacks.[36]
An autopsy conducted in Damascus by the Syrian government claimed that Colvin was killed by an "improvised explosive device filled withnails".[37] This account was rejected by photographerPaul Conroy, who was with Colvin and Ochlik and survived the attack. Conroy recalled that Colvin and Ochlik were packing their gear when Syrian artillery fire hit their media centre.[38]
JournalistJean-Pierre Perrin and other sources reported that the building had been targeted by the Syrian Army, identified using satellite phone signals.[39][40] Their team had been planning an exit strategy a few hours prior.[23]
On the evening of February 22, 2012, people of Homs mourned in the streets in honour of Colvin and Ochlik. Tributes were paid to Colvin across the media industry and political world following her death.[41][42]
Colvin's personal possessions came with her. This included a backpack containing basic supplies and a 387-page manuscript by her lifelong friend,Gerald Weaver. Colvin's sister, Cathleen 'Cat' Colvin along with Sean Ryan, then foreign editor ofThe Sunday Times, helped to have his book published.[43][44]
Colvin's funeral took place in Oyster Bay, New York, on March 12, 2012, in a service attended by 300 mourners, including those who had followed her dispatches, friends and family.[45] She was cremated and half of her ashes were scattered offLong Island, and the other half on theRiver Thames, near her last home.
In July 2016, Cat Colvin filed a civil action against the government of the Syrian Arab Republic forextrajudicial killing claiming she had obtained proof that the Syrian government had directly ordered Colvin's targeted assassination.[39] In April 2018, the accusations were revealed on court papers filed by her family.[46] In January 2019, an American court ruled that the Syrian government was liable for Colvin's death and ordered that they pay $300m in punitive damages. The judgement stated that Colvin was "specifically targeted because of her profession, for the purpose of silencing those reporting on the growing opposition movement in the country. [The] murder of journalists acting in their professional capacity could have a chilling effect on reporting such events worldwide. A targeted murder of an American citizen, whose courageous work was not only important, but vital to our understanding of war zones and of wars generally, is outrageous, and therefore a punitive damages award that multiples the impact on the responsible state is warranted."[47][48]
In 2025, a court in France issued an arrest warrant for former Syrian presidentBashar al-Assad and six other officials of his regime over the attack that killed Colvin and Ochlik.[49]
In 2018, a film based on Colvin's life,A Private War, directed byMatthew Heineman, written byArash Amel, and starringRosamund Pike as Colvin, was released, based on the 2012 article "Marie Colvin's Private War" inVanity Fair magazine byMarie Brenner.[50][51][52][53][54] While being interviewed in 2021,Chris Terrio, who wrote the filmBatman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, stated thatLois Lane's arc in the film was inspired by Colvin.[55]
Born in Astoria, Queens, Colvin, 56, grew up in East Norwich and attended high school in Oyster Bay.
| Awards | ||
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| Preceded by | British Foreign Reporter of the Year 2001 2010 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Succeeded by | |
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| Other | |
