Syrian photojournalist Anas Alkharboutli, who worked for the German Press Agency (DPA), was killed on Wednesday, December 4, 2024, in an Assad regime strike near Hama. The attack severed both his legs, and he succumbed to his injuries on the way to the hospital.
Ali Haj Suleiman, a freelance journalist who was with Alkharboutli during the strike, said a low-flying plane circled overhead before targeting a group of journalists.
The journalists, who were reporting on the surprise offensive by anti-Assad opposition fighters, were filming the warplane heading south, but according to Suleiman, it turned around and launched missiles at their location. Despite wearing vests labeled “Press,” they seemed to be deliberately targeted, with no other vehicles nearby.
Alkharboutli, 32, was studying energy engineering when he decided to pause his studies in 2011, when security forces arrested fellow students during Syria’s uprising. He then turned to photojournalism to document the brutal siege and attacks on his hometown in Eastern Ghouta by Assad regime forces and allies.
“When you are displaced, you are not necessarily aware of everything that’s going on. The most difficult moment is when you get on the bus and realize you’re leaving home, where you grew up and spent your whole life,” Alkharboutli said in 2021 about being forcibly displaced during the Assad regime’s assault on his hometown.
Wounded by shrapnel in 2016 while covering Assad forces’ attacks on his hometown, he also suffered personal losses: one brother was killed in an airstrike, another was imprisoned by the regime, and his parents were forced to flee Syria over a decade ago.
In 2020, Alkharboutli won the Young Reporter Trophy at France’s Bayeux Award for war reporting and the sports category at the 2021 Sony World Photography Awards.
These are some of the photographs that Alkharboutli captured throughout his career.
