Bosnia honors Kurt Schork, AP journalist with passports awarded posthumously

Date: June 8, 2000

Sarajevo government officials on Thursday awarded Bosnian passports posthumously to journalists from Reuters and the Associated Press who were killed last month in Sierra Leone.

Bosnia's Independent Union of Journalists initiated the action in honour of Reuters correspondent Kurt Schork and Miguel Gil Moreno de Mora of the AP. The passports were given to Reuters and AP representatives by officials of the Sarajevo cantonal interior ministry.

Schork, a U.S. citizen, and Gil Moreno de Mora, a Spaniard, were widely recognised for their reporting on Bosnia's bloody civil war. They were killed on May 24 when rebels ambushed them in Sierra Leone.

The journalist union's chief, Mehmed Husic, said the two men were true friends of Bosnia. He added: "They were really the people who have said the truth about Bosnia in the times when it was the most difficult and most important thing."