Diplomats work to send Colvin's body home

WARSAW, Poland -- Polish diplomats are working to get wounded Western journalists evacuated from the Syrian city of Homs and the bodies of a U.S. journalist and a French photographer out of the country, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said, meanwhile, that he believes the dead journalists were "assassinated" and that President Bashar Assad "must go."

Earlier this month, Poland's Embassy in Damascus took charge of representing U.S. interests in Syria, after Washington closed its mission as a sanction against the violence.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Marcin Bosacki said Poland's embassy is cooperating with U.S., British and French diplomats and with Syrian authorities in efforts "to obtain the evacuation of Western journalists from Homs" and to bring out the bodies of Marie Colvin, who grew up in East Norwich, and Frenchman Remi Ochlik. He said the situation was "complicated" and declined to give details.

Colvin, 56, a correspondent for The Sunday Times of London, and Ochlik, 28, a photojournalist, died Wednesday in a rocket attack on Homs. Colvin was a graduate of Oyster Bay High School. Her mother, Rosemarie, in East Norwich, said the family hopes the remains will be returned to New York for a funeral service.

Edith Bouvier of Le Figaro and photographer Paul Conroy of the Sunday Times, who were wounded in the attack, have asked for help leaving the city, now the heart of the revolt against Assad. -- AP