Feb. 22, 2012. A member of the Free Syrian Army rides in the back of a truck in Bab Amr. "We were sitting very close, Rémi and I," Daniels recalls. "Javier [Espinosa, a Spanish reporter] was on my left, and Rémi was on my right. And Rémi took pictures of this guy, but he took the picture with a 24-mm and me with a 35, and we were joking, saying, 'Oh, we will have the same picture, but with different lenses.' Edith was inside the car."William Daniels—Panos for TIME
When we arrived in Bab Amr, we began to send e-mails to editors saying we were there. We were excited, happy. Of course, we were scared of the situation, but we were happy.
On the first morning, shelling began very close to us. One boom, then a second. After the third, the Syrians with us shouted, “You have to get out!” Then a fourth rocket hit. We lost Marie Colvin, the American reporter, and my friend Rémi Ochlik, a photographer. The correspondent for Le Figaro, Edith Bouvier, was badly injured, as was Paul Conroy, a British photojournalist.
The Syrian army targeted Bab Amr everywhere, anywhere. There was no way to get out. One night we visited families staying underground. There were 150 people in a basement with only small lights. They had some rice and a bit of water. Everyone had a family member who had been killed. We felt very bad, thinking, Please help us get out of here; we have lost our friends. But we couldn’t say that, because they had lost everything.
The Syrians who were looking after us were never outwardly scared. They were totally confident. They would prepare medicine in the middle of the room, while we were cowering behind a wall. They were not scared of anything.
Rémi’s death affected me a lot. And perhaps it will affect me even more later. His career was taking off. He had just won the World Press Photo award. He was becoming famous. I was sure he was about to work with magazines he’d dreamed of working for, like TIME. We were excited about getting to Syria. We thought we had a lot of work. I thought, O.K., we’re here, we’ve come for this, to be inside Bab Amr. There was no time to think that maybe we’d made a mistake in going there.
I really liked Rémi. I had a lot of affection for him. Perhaps because I’m older, I felt a bit like an older brother. But sometimes he was the one advising me, especially when we were in dangerous situations. And he just disappeared, so quickly.
Rémi was cremated in Paris on March 6, the first anniversary of the Syrian revolution.
French photographer William Daniels was on assignment for TIME in the besieged district of Bab Amr. On March 1, after nine days there, he and Edith Bouvier managed to safely cross the border into Lebanon.
Feb. 21, 2012. A member of the Free Syrian Army at a checkpoint on the road to Homs. Daniels recounts traveling with Le Figaro journalist Edith Bouvier: "It was the beginning. We were happy to be on our way, motivated and concentrated."William Daniels—Panos for TIMEFeb. 21, 2012. "A bit further down the road. We are in the car and can see a piece of the gun. The smoke, we are not sure, but maybe it was from a tank that was burned," Daniels says.William Daniels—Panos for TIMEFeb. 21, 2012. On the road to Homs. "I took a lot of pictures of this guy. I liked his eyes. It's something like he's not a real warrior — a young guy, maybe 18 or 20," says Daniels. "He was always carrying his weapon, ready to fire."William Daniels—Panos for TIMEFeb. 21, 2012. Rémi Ochlik with a Free Syrian Army fighter near Homs, taken the night before Ochlik was killed by a rocket attack in Bab Amr. "We met Rémi in this room with all these FSA soldiers ... After that we were inside a tunnel, then we were in Bab Amr," says Daniels.William Daniels—Panos for TIMEFeb. 22, 2012. A member of the Free Syrian Army rides in the back of a truck in Bab Amr. "We were sitting very close, Rémi and I," Daniels recalls. "Javier [Espinosa, a Spanish reporter] was on my left, and Rémi was on my right. And Rémi took pictures of this guy, but he took the picture with a 24-mm and me with a 35, and we were joking, saying, 'Oh, we will have the same picture, but with different lenses.' Edith was inside the car."William Daniels—Panos for TIMEFeb. 22, 2012. A Syrian activist works in the media center in Bab Amr, a few hours before it was shelled. "I took this picture early in the morning, like 6 o'clock in the morning, because I woke up very early, maybe because I was a bit nervous," Daniels says.William Daniels—Panos for TIMEFeb. 23, 2012. A wounded Free Syrian Army member at a clinic in Bab Amr, one day after the attack that killed Rémi Ochlik and Marie Colvin.
William Daniels—Panos for TIMEFeb. 23, 2012. A baby wounded by shrapnel at the main clinic in Bab Amr district in Homs. "It's very, very dirty. They are missing a lot of things. They can't treat the biggest wounds. You have people arriving every day, every day. Very bad conditions. It's very scary. The hospital is not very protected. Most of the windows are broken from the blasts," Daniels says. "The doctors kept working. They look like they don't even hear the noise of the bombing. They are very brave people."William Daniels—Panos for TIMEFeb. 24, 2012. A baby wounded by a mortar attack at the Bab Amr clinic. The boy died a few days later.William Daniels—Panos for TIMEFeb. 24, 2012. A boy walks down a street in Bab Amr, Homs. The house where Daniels and three other journalists were holed up for days is behind the building at right.William Daniels—Panos for TIMEFeb. 24, 2012. An abandoned, heavily bombed street in Bab Amr. "We were heading to the place where Rémi’s and Marie’s bodies were being kept," Daniels says. "The car is going very fast because there were snipers. Most of the streets are like this. When we saw the bodies, it was written only in Arabic, ‘Man’ and ‘Woman.’ I told them they should write their exact names.” Daniels then wrote "Rémi Ochlik" and "Marie Colvin" on the body bags inside the makeshift morgue.William Daniels—Panos for TIMEFeb. 24, 2012. The destruction in Bab Amr, captured from a moving car. William Daniels—Panos for TIME
