Paul Conroy

Who is Paul Conroy?

Paul Conroy is a British freelance photographer and filmmaker who works in the British media. A former soldier with the Royal Artillery between 1980 and 1987, he has since worked extensively as a journalist in combat zones, producing footage from conflicts in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Libya. In 2011, he was shortlisted for the PRX Bayeux TV report along with Marie Colvin, a war correspondent with The Sunday Times.

On 22 February 2012 during the Syrian uprising, Conroy was injured while covering events from the Syrian city of Homs, a stronghold of Syrian opposition forces, after the building where he and other journalists were based was shelled by Syrian government forces. Marie Colvin and French photojournalist Remi Ochlik were killed in the attack, while Conroy was injured along with another journalist, French reporter Edith Bouvier of Le Figaro. Conroy suffered leg injuries in the attack and was subsequently smuggled out of the city and across the Syrian border to Lebanon.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy described the killing of Colvin and Ochlik as an assassination. It is believed that the journalists were targeted. The editor of The Sunday Times said he believed his reporter had been targeted. Conroy later described the situation in Homs as an "indiscriminate massacre" and "slaughter" and compared it the Battle of Grozny during the First Chechen War.