Marie Colvin, a veteran correspondent who was killed in Syria last week, died trying to get her shoes so she could escape a shelling attack, her paper reported Sunday. 

Colvin, a New York native, worked for London's The Sunday Times. 

As is the custom in Syria, she took off her shoes upon entering a building that was serving as a makeshift press center. She was on the ground floor when rockets hit the upper floors, The Sunday Times reported. 

Thinking then that the building was a target, Colvin rushed to retrieve her shoes in the hall. A rocket landed just a few yards away, the paper said. 

Colvin, 56, was the only British newspaper journalist inside the Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr. She was killed alongside French journalist Remi Ochlik in the attack Wednesday. 

Her mother, Rosemarie Colvin, said aid workers have been trying for days to remove her daughter's body from the war-ravaged country. 

She added that she believes her daughter was deliberately targeted by Syrian government forces. 

"They were first in another house, and the top floors there were blown off," she said. "First (the Syrian forces) rocketed the front of the building," she said, fueling suspicion that the attack against a makeshift media center where Colvin and Ochlik were holed up was no accident. 

The Syrian government was not immediately available for comment. 

The day before she was killed, Colvin had given media interviews to networks like ITN and CNN about the ongoing clashes in Homs, and about a child who was killed in the city. 
What type of building was she in?
makeshift press center