(CNN) -- The deaths of two Western journalists in Syria Wednesday, less than a week after New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid died in the violence-wracked country, highlights the danger reporters face in covering conflict zones.
Marie Colvin, a veteran foreign correspondent for London's Sunday Times, was reportedly one of the dead, the Times said, adding that it was trying to confirm the details.
Prize-winning war photographer Remi Ochlik, 28, was also killed, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said.
They were killed in heavy shelling of the city of Homs, Syrian opposition sources said.
Colleagues remembered Colvin, who lost her left eye covering a conflict, as "a legend" and "a class act."
British Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt called her "a brave woman and an excellent journalist," saying the news of her death was tragic.
She spoke to CNN about the suffering in the city of Homs just a day before she died.
She told Anderson Cooper that Syria was the worst conflict she had covered, partly because of the sheer amount of ordinance falling on Homs.
"There's a lot of snipers on the high buildings surrounding the neighborhood. I can sort of figure out where a sniper is but you can't figure out where a shell is going to land," she said.
Colvin had reported from many conflicts including last year's Libyan civil war, where she saw the shelling of the rebel port city of Misrata.
She stayed in the city when many of her colleagues left because of the danger, she told the Public Radio International program "The World" in May.
"It is very dangerous, I mean, it has to be said, and I think part of that danger is also the expectation of shelling. I mean, it's very random," she said.
Ochlik had covered conflicts from Haiti to Libya, and won first prize in the World Press Photo general news category for a photo of a rebel fighter resting in front of a rebel flag in the war-torn landscape of Ras Lanuf in Libya.
He started photographing conflicts at the age of 20, in Haiti, and went on to cover the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the presidential elections in Haiti in 2010, and the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, his website says.
His work was published by Le Monde Magazine, VSD, Paris Match, Time Magazine and The Wall Street Journal.
At least two other Western journalists have died in Syria this year, as have two Syrian journalists.
France 2 TV journalist Gilles Jacquier was killed in January when a mortar shell struck the pro-government rally he was attending as part of a government-authorized tour of the city of Homs, his network said.
Shadid, a two-time Pultizer Prize winner, died of an apparent asthma attack last week, the New York Times said. He was 43.
Robert Mahoney of the Committee to Protect Journalists called his death "a tragic reminder of the price journalists pay to bring us the news from conflict zones."
"Shadid knew the risks but chose to go because that's what reporters do," Mahoney said in a statement.
The CPJ said before the death of Colvin and Ochlik that at least 11 journalists have already been killed this year, including Jacquier and freelancer Mazhar Tayyara in Syria.
It lists both of them as having been killed for being journalists. Journalist Shukri Abu al-Burghul also died this year after being shot in the head in Damascus December 30, the CPJ said, but lists the motive for his killing as "unconfirmed."
CNN's Hala Gorani reported from Syria last summer on a government-sanctioned trip, and wrote about the dangers other journalists faced after Jacquier was killed January 11.
For some journalists, she said, "Trying to get the story means entering Syria in secret -- and trusting rebel contacts enough to be led through the darkness and into cities under siege.
"Away from the prying eyes of government minders, they risk imprisonment, torture, even death to cover the rebels," she said.
(CNN)