A Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer with the Reuters news agency has been killed while covering the fighting between Afghan security forces and the Taliban near a border crossing with Pakistan, the media outlet reported, citing an Afghan army commander.
Afghan forces were fighting to retake Spin Boldak when Danish Siddiqui and a senior Afghan officer were killed in Taliban crossfire, the official told Reuters.
The agency reported that Siddiqui, an Indian national, had been embedded with Afghan special forces in Kandahar since this week.
“We are urgently seeking more information, working with authorities in the region,” Reuters president Michael Friedenberg and editor-in-chief Alessandra Galloni said in a statement.
“Danish was an outstanding journalist, a devoted husband and father, and a much-loved colleague. Our thoughts are with his family at this terrible time.”
Reuters said Siddiqui had earlier reported being wounded in the arm by shrapnel while covering the fighting.
He was treated and had been recovering when Taliban fighters retreated from the fighting in Spin Boldak.
The agency said it was unable to independently verify the details.
Siddiqui was part of a team to share the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for documenting the Rohingya refugee crisis.
The agency said he had worked for them since 2010, covering the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Rohingya refugees crisis, the Hong Kong protests and Nepal earthquakes.
Chargé d’Affaires Ross Wilson, the top U.S. diplomat in Afghanistan, expressed condolences to Siddiqui’s family on Friday in a series of tweets.
He called it a “tragedy for #Afghanistan and the world that Danish is the latest of 54 reporters who have been killed or murdered” in the country.
