We’re sad to report that NPR Photojournalist David Gilkey has been killed in Afghanistan.
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Gilkey was the first American journalist who wasn’t in the military killed during the 15-year-long Afghan conflict, according to the New York Times.
NPR said the vehicle in which Gilkey, 50, and his translator were traveling was struck by shellfire near the town of Marjah.
The driver and machine gunner were killed along with Gilkey and Tamanna in the attack, which lasted 30-40 minutes, he said, adding that army helicopters were called in to provide air support. Later Gilkey and Tamanna’s bodies were taken to Camp Bastion, the main army base in Helmand, formerly under the command of U.S. Marines. All three were killed after the Humvee was hit by rocket propelled grenades in an apparent ambush.
NPR Pentagon correspondent, Tom Bowman, and producer Monika Evstatieva were also in the convoy but traveling in a separate vehicle. He subsequently went to Iraq and embedded with U.S. army units.
Gilkey, 50, had covered Iraq and Afghanistan since the September 11, 2001, attacks on Washington and NY, and was committed to helping the public see the wars and the people caught up in them, NPR’s senior vice president of news and editorial director, Michael Oreskes, said in a statement. He later joined the Detroit Free Press in 1996 and then began working for NPR in 2007.
“David’s images presented the atrocities of war, the destruction of nature – and most importantly, their impact upon people”, according to a tribute on the NPR website.
His role in an NPR investigation on veteran medical care helped the outlet earn a 2010 George Polk Award, Society for News Design’s 2011 Award of Excellence and a 2011 Dart Award for Excellence in Coverage.
He travelled to deadly conflicts around the world, on assignment for NPR.
One tribal elder from Helmand, who asked not to be identified because he feared for his own safety, said Taliban insurgents have effectively controlled large stretches of that road since November.
The road between Marjah and Lashkar Gah had only recently been reopened by security forces after heavy fighting in the area.
The family’s grief spotlights the plight of Afghan civilians, increasingly caught in the crosshairs of a lethal Taliban insurgency. The Taliban’s former leader, Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, was killed in a USA drone strike in southwestern Pakistan on May 21.
The U.S. -based Committee to Protect Journalists says 24 journalists and one media worker have been killed since the U.S. response in October 2001 to the September 11, 2001, al-Qaida attacks on the United States. He was 38, they said.
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Zabihullah Tamanna also freelanced as a reporter and photographer for Anadolu Agency.
