Two Journalists Have Been Killed in an Attack on an Afghan Army Convoy

A U.S. photojournalist for National Public Radio (NPR) and an Afghan journalist were killed Sunday on assignment in southern Afghanistan.

A statement said David Gilkey and Zabihullah Tamanna were part of an NPR crew traveling with an Afghan army unit near to Marjah, Helmand province, when their convoy came under fire.

“Their vehicle was struck by shellfire,” the statement says. “Gilkey was traveling on assignment with Tom Bowman and producer Monika Evstatieva. They are unharmed.”

Gilkey covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001, and worked on NPR’s Peabody Award-winning coverage of the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, it adds.

Freelance journalist Tamanna worked regularly for NPR, as well as China’s Xinhua news agency and Turkey’s Anadolu News Agency, the Associated Press reports.

In a tribute to Gilkey, NPR’s senior vice president of news and editorial director, Michael Oreskes, says the photographer, “was devoted to helping the public see these wars and the people caught up in them.”

“He died pursuing that commitment,” Oreskes adds in the statement. “As a man and as a photojournalist, David brought out the humanity of all those around him. He let us see the world and each other through his eyes.”

Write to Simon Lewis at simon_daniel.lewis@timeasia.com.