AFP – French freelance photographer Olivier Voisin, who was seriously wounded in Syria on Thursday, has died of his wounds after surgery in Turkey, the foreign ministry said.
“We confirm his death,” a ministry spokeswoman said on Sunday. Voisin, 38, had suffered head and arm injuries from shrapnel when a shell exploded near Idlib in northern Syria.
Turkish surgeons operated on Voisin on Friday in the border city of Antakya.
His pictures have been published in major French and British newspapers and he collaborated with AFP in January, providing about a dozen pictures from Aleppo.
Apart from Syria, he also covered news events in Libya, Somalia, Brazil, Haiti, Kenya and the United States.
Voisin was born in South Korea but was adopted by a French family.
危険地帯を現場取材するジャーナリストの死。そのこと自体に、私はあまり意味を見い出さない。
私たちは、現場ですれ違いざま、前から知っていたように情報を交換し合う。オリヴィエもそんな一人だ。そして、家族のように受け入れてくれるシリア人スタッフの人間関係の輪に入り、共有し合う。そうした現場のシリア人スタッフたちによって情報がもたらされる。戦場では、訃報もまた情報のひとつ。現場スタッフは、我々foreign journalists にとってかけがえのないfamilyなのである。ありがとう。
そしてオリヴィエ、心安らかに。お疲れさまでした。
後藤健二