Dith Pran, Humanitarian and Photojournalist for the New York Times has died of Pancreatic Cancer. A survivor of the Cambodian holocaust, he was the subject of the Oscar winning movie "The Killing Fields."
New York Times photojournalist Dith Pran, a Humanitarian, Cambodian Genocide survivor, and the subject of the Oscar winning 1984 movie "The Killing Fields" has died of pancreatic cancer this morning March 30, 2008 in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Last week, surrounded by family and friends in the hospital, Pran, 65, known for his upbeat personality quipped to Star-Ledger staff reporter Judy Peet that he intends to win his battle with cancer, "Food, medicine and meditation are good soldiers, and I am ready to fight."
But ultimately "this is my path and I must go where it takes me." He said he wanted to use his condition to encourage people to do early cancer screening.
Pran had spent his life since his survival from the brutality by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979, to raise awareness of the Cambodian holocaust and to campaign against genocide everywhere. He said in an interview in recent weeks, hoping that others will be able to carry on his work, "If they can do that for me, my spirit will be happy."
Pran was an assistant and translator in war-torn Cambodia from 1973 to 1975 to Sydney Schanberg, a New York Times correspondent. On April 17, 1975, while most Americans and other foreigners had already evacuated Cambodia, Schanberg had decided to stay to witness...