The foreign ministry of Syria has claimed the government was not responsible for the deaths of two Western journalists and around 20 other people in the embattled city of Homs on Wednesday. 
 
 The foreign ministry said in a statement: 
 
 "On the human level, we offer condolences to the media institutions and the families of the journalists who died on the Syrian territories." 
 
 "[But] we reject statements holding Syria responsible for the deaths of journalists who sneaked into its territory at their own risk." 
 
 Meanwhile some of the journalists wounded in yesterdays attack which killed in rocket attacks on a makeshift media centre on Wednesday, including Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik, as well as a 6-year-old boy, have called for safe passage from the city to receive medical attention. 
 
 In videos posted on YouTube the journalists, who include the Sunday Times' Paul Conroy, said they urgently needed to leave. 
 
 WATCH: wounded journalists speak from Homs 
 
 Elsewhere, in the Al-Qusoor area of Homs Syrians held a protest in solidarity with the dead journalists and others who had been killed. 
 
 Video of the protest posted online by citizen journalists showed a sign being held up to the camera which read "Remi Ochlik – Marie Colvin – We will not forget you". 
 
 Homs came under renewed bombardment on Thursday, activists said. Al Jazeera reported "intense barrages" in Baba Amr, the neighbourhood which has been under siege for 19 days. 
 
 The activist network Avaaz also reported that seven people had been executed attempting to bring medical supplies into Homs. 
 
 Avaaz said: "They were eager to bring a respirator and other medicines to the makeshift hospital near the media centre, but to do this they had to travel through an area controlled by the Syrian army. The walk should have taken half an hour. 
 
 "During the morning they failed to make contact with outside colleagues, and at 2.30pm they were found by another member of the humanitarian supply network on the road just outside Baba Amr. 
 
 "The seven men had had their hands tied behind their backs and had been shot dead. The respirator was gone, and some of the medicines were strewn across the road. The two other members of the party, one a foreign paramedic, had disappeared." 
 
 The Local Coordination Committees said at least three people had been killed around the country, and that the government was continuing to arbitrarily arrest members of the opposition. 
 
 Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, wrote in a Facebook group for foreign correspondents that Homs was now completely encircled by the Syrian army. 
 
 "The roads out of Homs towards Lebanon are effectively blocked by the Syrian army at the moment," he said. 
 
 "There is no refrigeration, ice, or electricity to keep their bodies refrigerated, so there is an increasing likelihood that they will have to be buried in Homs if we don't manage to move things very quickly. 
 
 "And the same blocked roads prevent the movement of the wounded. No real progress on the diplomatic front." 
 
 Last night the Syrian Ambassador to London, Dr Sami Khiyami, was summoned to the Foreign Office and told the government was "horrified" by the ongoing violence in the city. 
 
 British foreign secretary William Hague again criticised the Syrian regime, and in an interview with the BBC said: "It is a deeply frustrating situation... people have been dying in their thousands. 
 
 "The Assad regime has continued to act seemingly with impunity." 
 
 He said an international conference in Tunisia on Friday would seek to agree a "wide set of measures across a large group of nations", and there would be further efforts to bolster UN sanctions next week. 
 
 The aim was to tighten the "diplomatic and economic stranglehold" on the Middle East state. 
 
 "Do not underestimate the cumulative impact of that over time," Hague said. 
 
 Also on HuffPost: ||||| 'She wanted one more story': Mother of veteran war reporter Marie Colvin said her daughter was due to leave Syria on SAME DAY she was killed in rocket attack 
 
 
 
 Rosemarie Colvin said daughter's legacy was 'be passionate and involved in what you believe in' 
 
 
 
 Assad troops pledged to kill 'any journalist who set foot on Syrian soil' 
 
 French photographer Remi Ochlik also died in this morning's shelling 
 
 Both killed in attack on anti-Assad activists' makeshift media centre 
 
 'They knew if they destroyed the press centre, there'd be no more information coming out of Homs' 
 
 In Colvin's final dispatch she told how she 'watched a little baby die' 
 
 
 
 Foreign correspondent Marie Colvin has been killed in Syria 
 
 The mother of journalist Marie Colvin, who died in a rocket attack in Syria, said her daughter was on the verge of leaving the city because it was so dangerous. 
 
 
 
 Rosemarie Colvin described her daughter as passionate about her work, even when it got extremely hard. 
 
 The 55-year-old Sunday Times reporter died alongside French photographer Remi Ochlik, 28, in a rocket attack on the besieged city of Homs this morning. 
 
 Speaking from her home in East Norwich, New York, Mrs Colvin said: ' She was supposed to leave (Syria) today,' adding that her daughter had spoken yesterday with her editor at the Sunday Times who ordered her to leave because it was so dangerous. 
 
 
 
 Mrs Colvin said: ' She had to stay. She wanted to finish one more story.' 
 
 The award-winning journalist was the eldest of five children and is survived by her mother, two sisters and two brothers. 
 
 
 
 Her mother told reporters: 'The reason I've been talking to all you guys is that I don't want my daughter's legacy to be ''no comment'' ... because she wasn't a ''no comment'' person.' 
 
 'Her legacy is: Be passionate and be involved in what you believe in. 
 
 
 
 'And do it as thoroughly and honestly and fearlessly as you can.' 
 
 
 
 It was claimed that Syrian forces may have murdered Marie Colvin after pledging to kill 'any journalist who set foot on Syrian soil'. 
 
 
 
 Communication between Syrian Army officers intercepted by Lebanese intelligence staff has revealed that direct orders were issued to target the makeshift press centre in which Colvin had been broadcasting. 
 
 
 
 If journalists were successfully killed, then the Syrians were told to make out that they had died accidentally in fire fights with terrorist groups, the radio traffic revealed. 
 
 
 
 Just before she died, American-born Colvin had appeared on numerous international broadcast networks including the BBC and CNN to accuse Syrian dictator Bashar Assad's forces of 'murder'. 
 
 Scroll down for video... 
 
 Legacy: Rosemarie Colvin, mother of war reporter Marie Colvin who was killed in a rocket attack in Syria this morning, said her daughter had stayed in the country to 'finish one more story' 
 
 In her final dispatches she sought to alert the world to the tragedy unfolding in Homs telling the BBC yesterday: ' I watched a little baby die today - absolutely horrific, just a two-year-old been hit, they stripped it and found the shrapnel had gone into the left chest. 
 
 'The doctor just said "I can’t do anything". His little tummy just kept heaving until he died. That is happening over and over and over. ' 
 
 Jean-Pierre Perrin, a journalist for the Paris-based Liberation newspaper who was with Colvin in Homs last week, said they had been told that the Syrian Army was 'deliberately' going to shell their centre. 
 
 
 
 Mr Perrin said: 'A few days ago we were advised to leave the city urgently and we were told: 'If they (the Syrian Army) find you they will kill you'. 
 
 
 
 Frontline: Marie Colvin had been reporting on the Siege of Homs. In her last report she told how she was forced to watch a little boy (pictured) of just two die 
 
 Bombardment: Fire and smoke rising from buildings in the Baba Amr neighbourhood in Homs during an attack by Syrian forces 
 
 A still image taken from Turkish news crew video showing the location where Marie Colvin was among journalists killed in shelling by Syrian government forces in the besieged city of Homs 
 
 'I then left the city with the journalist from the Sunday Times but then she wanted to go back when she saw that the major offensive had not yet taken place.' 
 
 
 
 Mr Perrin, who headed to Beirut from Homs, said the Syrians were 'fully aware' that the press centre was broadcasting direct evidence of crimes against humanity, including the murdering of women and children. 
 
 
 
 It was in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, that he received news of the intercepted Syrian Army radio traffic. 'The Syrians knew that if they destroyed the press centre, then there would be 'no more information coming out of Homs', he said. 
 
 
 
 He added that the centre had a limited electricity supply and internet access, thanks to a generator. This made it a 'privileged location' compared to the rest of the decimated city. 
 
 
 
 Marie Colvin had been a foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times for two decades, reporting from the world's most dangerous places. She lost the sight in one eye in Sri Lanka in 2001 
 
 In her broadcasts on Tuesday night, Colvin had accused the Syrian Army of perpetrating the 'complete and utter lie that they are only targeting terrorists.' 
 
 Describing what was happening as 'absolutely sickening', Colvin said: 
 
 
 
 'The Syrian army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians.' 
 
 Other sources in Damascus confirmed that Syrians, including senior Army officers and Al-Assad himself, would have been able to watch Colvin's broadcasts. 
 
 
 
 Frederic Mitterrand, the French culture minister, said Colvin and Ochlik had been 'targeted and tried to flee the bombardment', and eyewitnesses in Homs said were killed as they fled the centre. 
 
 
 
 Reporters working in Homs feared the Army had 'locked on' to their satellite phone signals and targeted the buildings they were coming from. 
 
 
 
 Abdu al-Homsi, an opposition activist, confirmed that the Army had cut phone lines into the city and were bombing any buildings where they detected mobile phone signals. 
 
 The news of Colvin's death came just hours after she had reported on 'sickening' scenes in the city on Channel 4 and ITN's News at Ten. 
 
 Reports say she and Mr Ochlik were escaping from the building when they were hit by a rocket. Much of the building is said to have collapsed, opposition supporters said. 
 
 Marie Colvin with Libyan rebels in Misrata last June where she was reporting on the uprising against the Gaddafi regime 
 
 Foreign Secretary Willaim Hague and writer Salman Rushdie paid tributes to Colvin on Twitter 
 
 Abu Bakr, who witnessed the attack, said: 'I left the house after it got struck and headed to a house across the street. The shelling continues and the bodies of the journalists are still on the ground. 
 
 
 
 'We can't get them out because of the intensity of the shelling even though we're only a few metres away from them.' 
 
 A candle burns in front of a memorial plaque remembering Marie Colvin Remi Ochlik at St Bride's Church on Fleet Street 
 
 Sunday Times editor John Witherow paid tribute to Ms Colvin as an 'extraordinary figure' who was 'driven by a passion to cover wars in the belief that what she did mattered'. 
 
 He added: ‘Marie believed profoundly that reporting could curtail the excesses of brutal regimes and make the international community take notice.’ 
 
 Prime Minister David Cameron said: 'This is a desperately sad reminder of the risks that journalists take to inform the world of what is happening and the dreadful events in Syria, and our thoughts should be with her family and her friends.' 
 
 Foreign Secretary William Hague said: 'For years she shone a light on stories that others could not and placed herself in the most dangerous environments to do so, including suffering injuries while reporting in Sri Lanka. 
 
 'She was utterly dedicated to her work, admired by all of us who encountered her, and respected and revered by her peers. 
 
 The U.S. State Department has also condemned the 'shameless brutality of Assad's regime'. 
 
 Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said: 'This tragic incident is another example of the shameless brutality of the Assad regime.' 
 
 Ms Colvin was the only UK newspaper reporter in Homs. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it was investigating reports that a British photographer was also injured in the attack. 
 
 Channel 4 News anchor Jon Snow called her 'the most courageous journalist I ever knew and a wonderful reporter and writer'. 
 
 
 
 Up to 45 people were killed this morning by the Syrian army in attacks on the Baba Amr district of Homs, which has been under siege from President Bashar al-Assad's forces since February 4. 
 
 Intense shelling began at 6.30am and was still continuing hours later, it was reported. A witness said the building in which the journalists were based was hit around 10am (local time). 
 
 This image from amateur video is believed to show Paul Conroy of the Sunday Times, left, and Edith Bouvier of Le Figaro in a makeshift clinic in Homs today 
 
 The building was a well-known temporary press centre in Homs, next door to a hospital. 
 
 
 
 The Syrian military has redoubled its attacks on the city in the past few days, aiming to retake neighborhoods that have come under control of the opposition and armed rebels - many of them military defectors. 
 
 The seizure of territory and nearly daily clashes between the rebels and regime forces have pushed Syria to the brink of all-out civil war. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 France's Foreign Minister, Alain Juppe, said the attacks show the 'increasingly intolerable repression' by Syrian forces. 
 
 
 
 There have been claims that journalists have been deliberately targeted after a French TV cameraman was killed last month by mortar shells. Correspondents fear that satellite telephones have been locked onto by Assad security forces, who then target the buildings from which the signals are coming. Few buildings in Homs have basements, so residents and correspondents have been seeking shelter in the stairwells during the relentless bombardments. 
 
 Action man: French photographer Remi Ochlik seen in Cairo, Egypt, in November 2011 
 
 Missed: French photographer Remi Ochlik was killed in the rocket attack in Homs that killed Marie Colvin 
 
 
 
 The Damascus regime has tried to stop international journalists reaching opposition strongholds such as Homs to report on the crackdown. 
 
 Several journalists caught being smuggled into the country from Lebanon have seen their local fixers and drivers subjected to fierce beatings. 
 
 Those journalists allowed into Syria officially have had their movements limited and have been accompanied by government minders for much of their time. 
 
 
 
 In a piece for the Sunday Times this weekend, Ms Colvin spoke of the citizens of the city 'waiting for a massacre'. 
 
 
 
 She wrote: 'The scale of human tragedy in the city is immense. The inhabitants are living in terror. Almost every family seems to have suffered the death or injury of a loved one.' 
 
 Rupert Murdoch, chief of News International, which owns the Sunday Times, said in an email to staff: 'Marie had fearlessly covered wars across the Middle East and south Asia for 25 years for The Sunday Times. 
 
 'She put her life in danger on many occasions because she was driven by a determination that the misdeeds of tyrants and the suffering of the victims did not go unreported.' 
 
 Throughout her career Ms Colvin covered many conflicts around the globe, most recently Tunisia, Egypt and Libya during the Arab spring. She was known to go into the world's trouble spots and remain there for several weeks at a time. 
 
 'THE SCALE OF HUMAN TRAGEDY IN THE CITY IS IMMENSE' 
 
 In her final dispatches, Ms Colvin sought to alert the world to the human tragedy unfolding in the Syrian city Homs, which has been subjected to repeated heavy bombardments by Assad’s forces. She told the BBC yesterday: 'I watched a little baby die today - absolutely horrific, just a two-year-old been hit, they stripped it and found the shrapnel had gone into the left chest. 'The doctor just said "I can’t do anything". His little tummy just kept heaving until he died. That is happening over and over and over. 
 
 'No one here can understand how the international community can let this happen, particularly when we have an example of Srebrenica - shelling of a city, lots of investigations by the United Nations after that massacre, lots of vows to never let it happen again.' 
 
 Describing the situation in Homs as 'absolutely sickening', she said: 'There’s just shells, rockets and tank fire pouring into civilian areas of this city, and it’s just unrelenting.' 
 
 In a front-page article published in the Sunday Times at the weekend, Ms Colvin reported that wounded civilians in the Baba Amr area of Homs were being treated by a vet because no doctors were available. 
 
 She wrote: 'The scale of human tragedy in the city is immense. The inhabitants are living in terror. Almost every family seems to have suffered the death or injury of a loved one.' Sunday Times editor John Witherow said today in a statement: 'Marie was an extraordinary figure in the life of The Sunday Times, driven by a passion to cover wars in the belief that what she did mattered. 'She believed profoundly that reporting could curtail the excesses of brutal regimes and make the international community take notice. Above all, as we saw in her powerful report last weekend, her thoughts were with the victims of violence. 'Throughout her long career she took risks to fulfill this goal, including being badly injured in Sri Lanka. Nothing seemed to deter her. 'But she was much more than a war reporter. She was a woman with a tremendous joie de vivre, full of humour and mischief and surrounded by a large circle of friends, all of whom feared the consequences of her bravery.' Foreign Secretary William Hague said: 'Marie Colvin embodied the highest values of journalism throughout her long and distinguished career as a foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times. 'Her tragic death is a terrible reminder of the risks that journalists take to report the truth. 'It is also a terrible reminder of the suffering of the Syrian people - scores of whom are dying every day. 'Marie and Remi died bringing us the truth about what is happening to the people of Homs. 'Governments around the world have the responsibility to act upon that truth - and to redouble our efforts to stop the Assad regime’s despicable campaign of terror in Syria.' 
 
 In 2010 Ms Colvin spoke about the dangers of reporting from warzones at a ceremony honouring journalists killed in the line of duty. 
 
 'Covering a war means going to places torn by chaos, destruction, and death... and trying to bear witness. It means trying to find the truth in a sandstorm of propaganda when armies, tribes or terrorists clash ,' she said at the event in St Bride's Church, Fleet Street. 
 
 'And yes, it means taking risks, not just for yourself but often for the people who work closely with you. 
 
 'Despite all the videos you see from the Ministry of Defence or the Pentagon, and all the sanitised language describing smart bombs and pinpoint strikes... the scene on the ground has remained remarkably the same for hundreds of years. 
 
 'Craters. Burned houses. Mutilated bodies. Women weeping for children and husbands. Men for their wives, mothers children. 
 
 Destruction: Activists shown clearing up rubble in the city of Homs, which has been the subject of a brutal crackdown by Assad's troops 
 
 'Our mission is to report these horrors of war with accuracy and without prejudice. We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is worth the story. What is bravery, and what is bravado? 
 
 
 
 'Journalists covering combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes they pay the ultimate price.' 
 
 Although her area of speciality was the Arab and Persian world, she also worked in Chechnya, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka, where she was injured and lost her eye when she was ambushed by government soldiers for her work with the Tamil Tigers. 
 
 Speaking in 2010 about losing her eye she said: 'Many of you here must have asked yourselves - or be asking yourselves now - "Is it worth the cost in lives, heartbreak, loss? Can we really make a difference?" 
 
 'I faced that question when I was injured. In fact one paper ran a headline saying, "has Marie Colvin gone too far this time?" My answer then, and now, was that it is worth it.' 
 
 A CAREER ON THE FRONT LINE 
 
 Marie Colvin's 30-year career journalism saw her, having graduated from Yale, take up the post of Paris bureau chief for United Press International in 1984 before she moved to the Sunday Times a year later. 
 
 There she was Middle East correspondent for a decade, from 1986 to 1995, before becoming foreign affairs correspondent. Although her area of speciality was the Arab and Persian world, she also worked in Chechnya, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka, where she was injured and blinded when she was ambushed in 2001 by government soldiers because of her work with the Tamil Tigers. A grenade attack left her blind in one eye and was forced to wear a black eye patch to cover up the injury. 
 
 She won the British press award for 'Best Foreign Correspondent' twice, for her work in reporting the conflict in Yugoslavia, Iran, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe; the International Women’s Media Foundation award for 'Courage in Journalism' for her coverage of Kosovo and Chechnya, and the Foreign Press Association's Journalist of the Year award. She is a patron of Reporters Sans Frontieres and Child Hope. Marie Colvin was born in Oyster Bay, New York. 
 
 She lived in Hammersmith, west London, and was married three times, but had no children. 
 
 
 
 Ms Colvin won the British press award for 'Best Foreign Correspondent' twice, for her work in reporting the conflict in Yugoslavia, Iran, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe; the International Women’s Media Foundation award for 'Courage in Journalism' for her coverage of Kosovo and Chechnya, and the Foreign Press Association's Journalist of the Year award. 
 
 Colvin, who was married three times, wrote and produced the BBC documentary Arafat: Behind the Myth and presented a documentary on Martha Gellhorn, the war correspondent who covered the Spanish Civil War. 
 
 Just a few weeks ago photographer Mr Ochlik won a World Press Photo Award for his work in Libya last year. In 2005 he received the Prix des Espoirs. 
 
 
 
 It was also reported that Rami al-Sayed, a citizen journalist who provided media outlets with live footage from Homs, was killed in the shelling, while British photojournalist Paul Conroy, who has worked closely with Ms Colvin in the past, was also injured. 
 
 Just yesterday activists warned of a new round of fierce and bloody urban combat being unleashed. 
 
 A flood of military reinforcements has been a prelude to previous offensives by Assad's regime, which has tried to use its overwhelming firepower to crush an opposition that has been bolstered by defecting soldiers and hardened by 11 months of street battles. 
 
 Shells reportedly rained down yesterday on rebellious districts at a rate of 10 per minute at one point. 
 
 The Red Cross called for a daily two-hour ceasefire so that it can deliver emergency aid to the wounded and sick. 
 
 
 
 It has also been reported that food and water are running dangerously low in the city. 
 
 'If they don't die in the shelling, they will die of hunger,' activist and resident Omar Shaker told The Associated Press after hours of intense shelling on Baba Amr. 
 
 'They bombed all the water tanks on the roofs of buildings. There's no water. Some people have gone without bread for days,' said Shaker. 
 
 More than 200 people were wounded, he said, adding that two children were among the dead. 
 
 Phone lines with Homs have been cut, making it difficult to get firsthand accounts from residents. 
 
 One amateur video posted on the Internet showed thick smoke and shells slamming behind a building in Baba Amr. Another showed a shop on the ground floor of a building on fire as a narrator cries: 'We are dying. Where are the Arabs?' 
 
 Another 33 people were killed in northern Syria's mountainous Jabal al-Zawiya region when government forces raided a town in pursuit of rebels. 
 
 
 
 The Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group, said more than 100 were killed overall yesterday, but the report could not immediately be confirmed. 
 
 The UN estimates that 5,400 people have been killed by the regime since the uprising began 11 months ago. Syrian activists, however, put the death toll at more than 7,300. 
 
 Ms Colvin gives an address at St. Bride's Church in November 2010, saying: 'We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is worth the story' 
 
 Russia, one of Assad's remaining allies, urged the United Nations to send a special envoy to Syria to help coordinate security issues and delivery of humanitarian assistance. 
 
 The defiance in Homs, Syria's third-largest city, has become an embarrassment to the regime which insists that the opposition is mostly armed factions with limited public support. 
 
 The rebel defences in Homs are believed to be bolstered by hundreds of military defectors, which has possibly complicated attempts by Syrian troops to stage an offensive. 
 
 People gather in the streets to mourn the death of Nasruldeen Barhek killed in Qamishli by Assad's militia 
 
 A Syrian opposition leader who managed to get into Homs appealed for international help. 
 
 'The sound of bombardment and sniper fire are echoing across the city,' Moulham al-Jundi, a member of the Syrian National Council, told Reuters from Homs. 
 
 'The army prevents first aid or medical supplies from going in and electricity is cut off 15 hours a day. There has been no mobile phone service for three weeks,' said Jundi, who lives in exile in Saudi Arabia and was smuggled into Homs. 
 
 'Civilians need safe zones and a way has to be found to ensure that medicine and basic supplies reach Homs. There are no hospitals, no schools, no work, no government departments open and most shops are shut.' 
 
 A bullet-riddled building in Homs shows the damage wrought on the city by Assad's forces 
 
 A market in the city of Homs shows the aftermath of yet another assault by government forces 
 
 One Homs resident, communicating with the AP over the internet, said many people are unable or too scared to go to the hospital for treatment. Some are bleeding to death at home. 
 
 'My cousin is a doctor and he said they've given up on treating serious wounds. The numbers are too many to cope with especially with so little supplies,' said the resident, who has provided reliable information in the past. The resident spoke on condition of anonymity because of the fear of reprisal. 
 
 The resident, who lives just outside Baba Amr, said people in the neighborhood were surviving mostly on stocks of rice and canned corn and tuna, but those supplies also were running out fast after several weeks of attacks. 
 
 
 
 Some people go without bread for days, and when grocery stores and bakeries reopen during a lull in the shelling, long lines form quickly, the resident said, adding that shortages exist of all kinds of foodstuffs and vegetables. 
 
 
 
 A delegation from the Syrian National Council, the main Syrian opposition grouping, is due to meet Red Cross officials in Geneva today. ||||| President Bashar al-Assad's army was so determined to silence reporters who were telling the world about the relentless killing of civilians in the besieged city of Homs that they pledged to "kill any journalist who set foot on Syrian soil". 
 
 Colvin , 56, died with a French photographer, 28-year-old Remi Ochlik , when they were fired on as they tried to flee a makeshift press centre that had suffered a direct hit from a shell. 
 
 Witnesses said they were killed by a rocket-propelled grenade as they emerged from the ruins of the press centre, which was next door to a hospital. Frederic Mitterrand, the French culture minister, said they had been "pursued as they tried to flee the bombardment". 
 
 Activist Abu Bakr, who was in the house with Colvin and Ochlik when it got shelled, told activist group Avaaz: “Missiles landed on our house and on the buildings surrounding it. Marie and Remi were killed instantly." 
 
 Before the building was attacked, Syrian army officers were allegedly intercepted by intelligence staff in neighbouring Lebanon discussing how they would claim journalists had been killed in crossfire with "terrorist groups". 
 
 The deaths of the two journalists prompted an international outcry. William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said governments around the world had to "redouble our efforts to stop the Assad regime's despicable campaign of terror", while Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, said: "Enough is enough. This regime must go." 
 
 Last night, Britain summoned the Syrian ambassador, Dr Sami Khiyami, to the Foreign Office to lodge a protest over the deaths. Its political director Sir Geoffrey Adams expressed the Government’s “horror” at the continued violence and demanded Syria’s co-operation in repatriating the bodies. 
 
 The EU described the killings as “crimes” in a statement, while French foreign minister Alain Juppe said Paris was holding the Syrian government responsible. The White House offered its condolences. 
 
 Colvin in the mountains of Chechnya in 1999 
 
 Hours before she died, Colvin had given interviews to several broadcasters including the BBC, Channel 4 and CNN in which she described the bloodshed as "absolutely sickening". 
 
 She also accused Mr Assad's forces of "murder" and said it was "a complete and utter lie that they are only targeting terrorists…the Syrian army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians". 
 
 Sources in Damascus confirmed that Syrians, including Mr Assad, would have been able to watch Colvin's broadcasts – a fact that could have sealed her fate. 
 
 Jean-Pierre Perrin, a journalist for the Paris-based Liberation newspaper who was with Colvin in Homs last week, said they had been told the Syrian Army was deliberately going to shell their media centre, which had a limited electricity supply and internet access thanks to a generator. 
 
 Mr Perrin said: "A few days ago we were advised to leave the city urgently and we were told 'if they [the Syrian army] find you they will kill you'. 
 
 "I then left the city with [Colvin] but she wanted to go back when she saw that the major offensive had not yet taken place." 
 
 Mr Perrin, who went to Beirut from Homs, said the Syrians were "fully aware" that the press centre was broadcasting direct evidence of crimes against humanity, including the murdering of women and children. He said: "The Syrian army issued orders to 'kill any journalist that set foot on Syrian soil'." 
 
 Colvin with Libyan rebels in Misurata in 2011 
 
 In Beirut, he was told about the intercepted radio traffic and said it was clear that Mr Assad's forces knew that there would be "no more information coming out of Homs" if they destroyed the press centre. A video posted on YouTube by opposition fighters purported to show the aftermath of the attack, with two unidentified bodies lying in a pile of rubble. 
 
 Reporters working in Homs, which has been under siege since Feb 4, had become concerned in recent days that Syrian forces had "locked on" to their satellite phone signals and attacked the buildings from which they were coming. 
 
 Abu Abdu al-Homsi, an opposition activist, said the Syrian army had cut phone lines into the city and was bombing any buildings where they detected mobile phone signals. 
 
 Two other Western journalists, the British photographer Paul Conroy, who was on an assignment with Colvin, and the French reporter Edith Bouvier were wounded in the attack. 
 
 Activists said Bouvier is at risk of bleeding to death if medical aid cannot reach her. She was being treated at a poorly-equipped field hospital in Homs’ besieged district of Baba Amro. 
 
 “There is a high risk she will bleed to death without urgent medical attention,” said a member of the global advocacy group Avaaz, which has been working with journalists and activists inside Syria. 
 
 A man stands before a bombed oil pipeline in Homs, the besieged city where Colvin died 
 
 “We are desperately trying to get her out, doing all we can in extremely perilous circumstances.” 
 
 Colvin, who had worn a black eye patch since losing an eye to a shrapnel wound while working in Sri Lanka in 2001, was the only journalist from a British newspaper in Homs. 
 
 Her editor, John Witherow, spoke of his "great shock" at her death, describing her as "an extraordinary figure in the life of the Sunday Times" who would be "sorely missed". 
 
 He said she "believed profoundly that reporting could curtail the excesses of brutal regimes and make the international community take notice". 
 
 Colvin's mother Rosemarie said her daughter had been due to leave Syria yesterday after the Sunday Times ordered her to leave because it was so dangerous. "She had to stay. She wanted to finish one more story," she said. "Her legacy is: Be passionate and be involved in what you believe in. And do it as thoroughly and honestly and fearlessly as you can." 
 
 Rupert Murdoch, who owns the Sunday Times, described Colvin as "one of the most outstanding foreign correspondents of her generation" with a "determination that the misdeeds of tyrants and the suffering of the victims did not go unreported". 
 
 David Cameron said her death was "a desperately sad reminder of the risks that journalists take to inform the world of what is happening and the dreadful events in Syria". Ed Miliband described her as "an inspiration to women in her profession" and Mr Hague said Colvin was "utterly dedicated to her work, admired by all of us who encountered her, and respected and revered by her peers". 
 
 The White House offered its condolences over the deaths of the two journalists, saying its “thoughts and prayers” were with their relatives. 
 
 Colvin with the Duchess of Cornwall in 2010 
 
 “These tragic deaths... are a reminder of the incredible risks” that reporters take in war zones, said White House spokesman Jay Carney, adding “our thoughts and prayers” are with the victims’ families. 
 
 Colvin, who was from New York but lived in London, was married three times but never had children. She had worked for the Sunday Times for 20 years and twice won the British Press Award for Foreign Correspondent of the Year. 
 
 In a report published in the Sunday Times over the weekend, Colvin spoke of the citizens of Homs "waiting for a massacre". She wrote: "The scale of human tragedy in the city is immense. The inhabitants are living in terror. Almost every family seems to have suffered the death or injury of a loved one." 
 
 In 2010, Colvin spoke about the dangers of reporting on war zones at a Fleet Street ceremony honouring fallen journalists, at which she was introduced to the Duchess of Cornwall. 
 
 She said: "We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is worth the story. What is bravery, and what is bravado? Journalists covering combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes they pay the ultimate price."
– Syrian troops had vowed to shoot to kill Western reporters when an American and French journalist were targeted yesterday, according to sources. Troops pledged to "kill any journalist who set foot on Syrian soil," the press was warned, reports the Telegraph. Marie Colvin, 56, and French photographer Remi Ochlik, 28, were killed by a rocket-propelled grenade as they fled a makeshift press center that had been hit with a missile. The two were "pursued as they tried to flee the bombardment," said French Culture Minister Fredric Mitterand. Even before the building was attacked, Lebanese intelligence picked up a conversation among Syrian army officers discussing how they would claim any dead journalists were killed in a crossfire with "terrorist" groups. Shortly before the killings, reporters were warned to "leave the city urgently" because if the Syrian Army "finds you, they will kill you," said a writer for the Paris-based newspaper Liberation. He left the country with Colvin and other reporters, but Colvin returned. Colvin, a war correspondent for the Sunday Times of London, gave several interviews accusing Bashar al-Assad's regime of "murder." It's "a complete and utter lie that they are only targeting terrorists," she said. "The Syrian army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians." Syria's foreign ministry denied any involvement in the journalists' deaths, reports the Huffington Post, offering "condolences" but rejecting "statements holding Syria responsible for the deaths of journalists who sneaked into its territory at their own risk."