Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin was killed in heavy shelling in the Syrian city of Homs today (22 February), Reuters news agency reported.

The veteran war correspondent is said to have died when the house she was staying in the Baba Amro district of Homs was hit by a rocket. Opposition forces in the city said French photographer Remi Ochlik, who was with her at the time, was also killed in the attack.

They were killed when trying to escape the house, witnesses told Reuters.

Both reporters were covering the on-going conflict between government and opposition forces in Syria and had years of experience reporting from the Middle East and beyond.

Colvin lost an eye in a grenade attack in Sri Lanka in 2001 and Ochlik had recently worked on uprisings across Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

According to activists based in Homs, at least two other journalists were seriously wounded in today's attack.

American-born Colvin, who was in her mid-50s, was well-known and respected for the hard-hitting reports she delivered from the front line. The award-winning journalist recently warned of a "massacre" in Homs and said it was "a complete and utter lie" that the Syrian government were targeting terrorists as opposed to civilians in the region.

This is one of her last reports to CNN, containing graphic footage of a little boy who died in one of the attacks on Homs:

Journalist Marie Colvin killed in Syria