The 41-year-old was embedded with an Afghan convoy that was assaulted by Taliban terrorists near a crucial border post with Pakistan when he died. He was the lead photographer for the Reuters news agency in India at the time of his death.
The number of people killed in the attack is unknown. Afghanistan’s ambassador to India, Farid Mamundzay, expressed his dismay at the news of “the assassination of a friend.”
Siddiqui, who is based in Mumbai, has worked with Reuters for over a decade.
He won the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography in 2018. For his efforts recording the brutality against Myanmar’s minority Rohingya group, he shared the award with colleague Adnan Abidi and five others.
His images of mass funerals staged in the height of India’s terrible second wave recently went viral, earning him worldwide praise and acclaim.
“While I enjoy covering news stories ranging from business to politics to sports,” Siddiqui told Reuters, “what I appreciate most is capturing the human face of a breaking storey.”
Siddiqui was reporting on battles in the Kandahar region as the US prepares to withdraw its military from Afghanistan ahead of President Joe Biden’s deadline of September 11th.
From the mid-1990s until the US invasion in 2001, Afghanistan was ruled by the Taliban, a conservative Islamic group. Human rights and cultural violations have been levelled against the organisation.
With foreign soldiers leaving after 20 years
