Reuters Photographer, Driver, Killed In Iraq

 

(July 12, 2007) – Reuters is reporting from London that one of their photojournalists and a driver have been killed in a blast in Baghdad. Circumstances surrounding their deaths are still unclear, but witnesses say that U.S. military personnel were seen taking away the photographer's cameras after he was dead.

Photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, were killed today in an area where fighting was taking place between U.S. troops and militants in eastern Baghdad, Reuters says. The news service is quoting Iraqi police sources who say that there was either an explosion or mortar attack that led to the deaths of the two men.

"We are all unbelievably saddened by the loss of Namir and Saeed," Thomas Szlukovenyi told News Photographer magazine today. Szlukovenyi is the global pictures news editor for Reuters in London. "Namir was a truly talented young man, loved by his friends and colleagues. He was full of energy and enthusiasm, always wanting to help, and never down or depressed despite the harsh realities of life in Baghdad. All he wanted to do was shoot pictures. Sadly it was this passion that took his life."

A tribute to Noor-Eldeen and a gallery of his Iraqi war photographs are online here.

Reuters is reporting that Noor-Eldeen called a coworker to say he was photographing a damaged building. A police report from the authorities who were closest to the scene, obtained this evening by Reuters, says the photographer and driver were near a building at about the same time a U.S. helicopter fired upon a minivan.

Agence France-Presse is reporting that the photojournalist and driver were covering the scene of a minibus that was carrying wounded Iraqis when a rocket or shell hit the bus. AFP also reports that one of their photographers at the scene of the explosion says seven additional bystanders were also killed by the blast. Witnesses claimed that a U.S. helicopter had fired the missile, AFP says, but Reuters said in a statement that the explosion could also have been caused by the kind of mortar shell that has commonly been used by Iraqi militia fighters.

After the attack, U.S. military personnel came and took away Noor-Eldeen's photography equipment, several witnesses told Iraqi police, and it has not been recovered, Reuters reports. Another witness returned Noor-Eldeen's press credentials to Reuters not long after the incident.

The U.S. military has not commented on whether it does or does not have the photographer's camera equipment, but it does admit that "two civilians reported as employees for the Reuters news service" were killed along with nine insurgents during a firefight.

A statement issued by the Multi-National Corps - Iraq public affairs office at Camp Victory, Iraq, said that U.S. and Iraqi troops had come under fire in the New Baghdad District, and when the skirmish was over nine insurgents were dead, one was wounded, and 13 more were in custody. The statement said troops were conducting a raid when they came under fire, and that they returned fire and called in an aviation attack for reinforcement.

The statement also says the incident that resulted in the journalists' deaths is under investigation.

“Once again we are left mourning colleagues who have met an untimely death while doing their job in Iraq,” Reuters chief executive officer Tom Glocer said. “Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh’s outstanding contribution to reporting on the unfolding events in Iraq has been vital. They stand alongside other colleagues in Reuters who have died doing a job that they believe in."

Reuters said the photographer was single, but that Chmagh was married and had four children.

Six Reuters employees have been killed in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003.

 

Update, July 13: The New York Times reports today that one of their reporters, Khalid Hassan, 23, an Iraqi journalist, has been shot dead while on his way to work in Baghdad on Friday morning. His killing comes one day after Noor-Elden and Chmagh's deaths. At least 149 journalists and media assistants have now died covering the war in Iraq since 2003; most of them have been Iraqis.

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