A French television journalist was killed and a Belgian radio journalist injured in the western Syrian city of Homs today, when a demonstration came under fire, news reports said. The French journalist has been identified as Gilles Jacquier, a long-time war correspondent for France 2 television.

According to Ian Black, Middle East editor for The Guardian newspaper who was in Homs at the time, the two journalists were covering a pro-government march when an explosion occurred. At least eight Syrians were reportedly also killed in the blast.

Black reported that he and other Western journalists had been taken to Homs and were being escorted around the city by officials from the Syrian Ministry of Information.  Jacquier and the unidentified Belgian were said to be part of a second group of Western journalists also in the city, which has been a flashpoint in the uprising against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Jacquier had covered a number of the world’s major conflict zones for France 2, which he joined in 1999, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo.  In June of last year, he, along with colleague Christophe Kenck, was awarded the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Press Prize for a documentary covering the uprising in the Tunisian city of Kasserine in the final days of the Ben Ali regime.

According to the ICRC’s website, the prize is given to “a current-affairs programme that promotes the principles of international humanitarian law by covering an armed conflict in terms of the suffering it inflicts.”

IPI Press Freedom Manager Anthony Mills said, “We are deeply saddened by the death of Gilles Jacquier and we send our deepest condolences to his family and colleagues.  His death is a tragic reminder of the constant dangers that journalists reporting from conflict zones face.  We urge all parties in Syria, including the government and security services, to respect the right of journalists to work freely and safely.”

Jacquier is the first Western journalist to have been killed in Syria since mass protests began there nearly 10 months ago.  The Syrian government has only allowed a hand-picked handful of Western journalists into the country.