At great personal risk, Colvin has ventured into the heart of the action, emerging with stories of the victims at the center of the world's conflicts. Keenly aware of the power of the media to show the fundamental horrors of war, she has employed that power to help protect those who are most vulnerable.
In telling her stories, Colvin has frequently risked her own life. While covering the war in East Timor, she fought to remain behind in the embattled UN refugee compound after journalists were asked to leave or risk being murdered. She insisted that a media presence was crucial to ensure the protection of refugees. In Kosovo, she shared trenches and went on patrol with the Kosovo Liberation Army as it engaged Serbian military forces.
In Chechnya, Colvin faced even greater danger when, along with a group of Chechen rebels, she was repeatedly attacked by Russian jet fighters. As she attempted to leave the Chechen rebel camp she was forced to walk for days through desolate, ice-covered mountains, fending off both Caucasian bandits and Russian paratroopers. Though the fearless Colvin admits her experience was harrowing, she also says that it gave her the insight she needed to write forceful, realistic reports on the daily struggles of Chechens fleeing the war.
In February 2012, Colvin secretly crossed into Syria on the back of a motocross motorcycle. Colvin was stationed in the western Baba Amr district of the city of Homs, and made her last broadcast on the evening of February 21, appearing on the BBC, Channel 4, CNN and ITN News via satellite phone. She described "merciless", indiscriminate shelling and sniper attacks against civilian buildings and people on the streets of Homs by Syrian forces.
Colvin and award-winning French photographer Rémi Ochlik died on February 22, 2012 while fleeing an unofficial media building which was being shelled by the Syrian Army. The Sunday Times reported that Colvin had died with Ochlik trying to retrieve their shoes to escape army bombardment of the building they were in; footage emerged from Syria reporting the burial of their bodies in a garden near where they were killed, before they were exhumed and taken to Damascus before repatriation.