Auction to benefit slain photographer's children

Christie's New York City auction house will hold a sale of photo prints to benefit the children of a South African photojournalist who was killed covering the Libyan uprising last year.

Television journalist Christiane Amanpour will host today's auction to benefit photographer Anton Hammerl's three children.

Hammerl was shot April 5, 2011, when he and other journalists were attacked by Moammar Gadhafi's forces.

Hammerl and the others were traveling outside of Brega when the group was attacked by government troops who shot and killed him. Hammerl's family believed for several weeks he was alive and being held by the Libyan government. His body still has not been recovered.

Hammerl, 41, is survived by his wife, Penny Shukraj, and three children, including a boy who was 6 weeks old when Hammerl died.

The Committee to Protect Journalists documented scores of attacks on journalists covering the Libyan conflict that toppled Gadhafi.

Among others killed were New York-based photographer Chris Hondros and British-born photographer-filmmaker Tim Hetherington.

The auction is sponsored by Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

It will include a print of Robert Capa's famous image of American soldiers landing on Omaha Beach in Normandy on D-Day, donated by the International Center of Photography.

It includes dozens of photos by Hammerl's contemporaries, including Hondros and Hetherington.

"Photojournalists are routinely putting their lives on the line," said Lynsey Addario, who donated a photo and who was held captive in Libya for six days in 2011. "It's important to recognize when one of us gets killed and try to help the family when at all possible."