Dear Reader,
Kim Sengupta, The Independent's award-winning war correspondent who covered every major conflict of the last 30 years, has died at the age of 68.
In a career spanning more than four decades – including spells as a reporter at the Daily Mail and Today – it was at The Independent that he would define his legacy as one of Britain's best on-the-ground correspondents. The list of countries and conflicts he would file from included Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, the Balkans, Ukraine, Georgia, Kosovo, Mali, Sudan, Somalia, Kashmir, Israel, Gaza and Northern Ireland.
Paying tribute to Kim, The Independent's editor-in-chief, Geordie Greig, said: "The sudden death of Kim Sengupta is a devastating loss for The Independent as well as for the wider world of journalism. Kim was a reporter's reporter. He lived for the story and courageously covered countless conflicts from Iraq to Ukraine.
"I first knew him more 40 years ago when he was a general reporter in Fleet Street and from those early days hugely admired his tenacious and tireless ambition to quest and pursue. He lived and worked ferociously hard, more often than not on the frontline, with a Hemingway swagger as he travelled the globe for The Independent.
"Modestly, he downplayed the dangers of war even as he told of the trials and tribulations of reporting with zest, humour and humanity."
Chris Blackhurst, former editor at The Independent, said: "In many years of working with Kim Sengupta I never came across anyone so fearless.
"As editor, you get to appreciate which journalists are 'high maintenance", constantly and painfully seeking approval and reassurance. Kim, despite the places he went, was most definitely not one of those. If he said he was going somewhere, he went there.
"He had an extraordinary knack for talking to anyone, be they ambassadors or generals or privates or those of an unspecified background – security services most probably – and extracting information from them. Kim really was one of a kind."
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