The bodies of slain American war reporter Marie Colvin and French photojournalist Rémi Ochlik have been turned over to the Red Cross, the humanitarian organization said on Friday.
Colvin and Ochlik were killed last week in a shell attack in the besieged neighborhood of Baba Amr. Baba Amr has been subject to more than three consecutive weeks of violent shell attacks by Syrian forces.
Following the news of her daughter's death, Colvin's mother made multiple pleas for Colvin's body to return to the U.S. An extremely graphic video shot by Syrian activists surfaced on Thursday, and claimed to show the burial of Colvin's body. According to Associate Press, the activists in the video said that burial was necessary because they did not have any electricity to refrigerate the body and it was beginning to decay.
The Red Cross said the bodies were en route to Syria's capital city Damascus, the first leg of its trip out of the country. While the Red Cross was able to recover the two bodies, the organization said that the Syrian government would not allow the aid group into the Baba Amr district.
The news comes on the heels of two French journalists' return home after being trapped in Baba Amr for a week. News broke on Thursday that French reporter Edith Bouvier and photographer William Daniels were taken from Syria to Lebanon. They were both injured in the same attack that killed Colvin. Bouvier suffered from a severely broken leg and pleaded for her evacuation last week.
Colvin, who was on assignment for the Sunday TImes of London, was in Syria with her photographer Paul Conroy. Conroy was also injured in the same attack and smuggled out of Syria earlier this week.