Colvin film should shame Syrian regime, says friend
WAR photographer Paul Conroy has said he hopes a new documentary which captures the death of journalist Marie Colvin injects a sense of shame into the Syrian regime.
The award-winning US reporter was killed in a rocket attack just hours after telling the world that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s army was “simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians”.
In February 2012 Ms Colvin travelled to the Baba Amr neighbourhood of Homs with Mr Conroy and Syrian translator Wael al-omar on an assignment.
The 56-year-old was killed alongside French photographer Remi Ochlik when a rocket slammed into the ground by the front door of the makeshift media centre.
Ms Colvin’s family launched legal action against the Syrian government, charging it with arranging her death. Mr Conroy said documents have shown they were deliberately targeted.
Defectors have claimed that the Assad regime knew where the reporters were because of the sdignals from their mobile phones.
He was speaking ahead of the cinema release of a documentary on September 7 about the fatal artillery attack called Under The Wire, which is based on his book of the same name.
“I hope if any of the Syrian regime ever get to watch it I would love it to inject a sense of shame into them,” the 54-year-old, from Liverpool said. “It would be nice to think that for one moment they felt a sense of guilt or a brief flash of humanity where it hurts.”
The attack also blasted a large hole in Mr Conroy’s leg and, after 23 operations, he said he has been left with a “massive lump of scar tissue that looks like a shark bite”.
Mr Conroy described the writing process as “very cathartic”, and said he only stopped for a week once he got to the chapter where he would have to write about the death of his friend. He made a conscious decision to not be involved in the editing of the documentary, which has been directed by Chris Martin.
It features interviews with those involved, including Mr Conroy, as well as unseen footage and audio of the attack which he said was smuggled out of Syria.
“One of my fears was if people came and just saw two people racing into this place, that they would have just asked ‘Why are they doing that? It is just stupid –irresponsible and reckless’,” he said.
“The last half hour, for me, my palms were sweating – and I knew the ending.”