Oct

2010

1:17am, EDT

Joao Silva / The New York Times

In this photo by Joao Silva, a British soldier with the Royal Anglians B Company calls for more ammunition as his comrades fire towards Taliban positions after elements of their company came under fire during a regular patrol in Kajaki, Afghanistan, on July 23, 2007.

Joao Silva / The New York Times

In this photo by Joao Silva, a militiaman loyal to the rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr waves his weapon atop a burning American tank after it was destroyed in a clash with the Mahdi Army in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad on Aug. 16, 2004. The U.S. military said the tank's crew escaped.

Joao Silva / The New York Times

Sgt. Jesse E. Leach, squad leader of 4th Mobile Assault Platoon, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, pulls LCpl. Valdez-Castillo, wounded by a sniper, towards a safer area, Oct. 31, 2006 in Karma, Iraq, in a photo taken by Joao Silva. Valdez-Castillo survived.

Photographer injured in Afghanistan

New York Times photographer Joao Silva was severely injured in southern Afghanistan in a landmine explosion on Saturday.

Silva stepped on a mine while on patrol with U.S. soldiers near the town of Arghandab on Saturday, the Times reported. Silva, 44, was embedded with a Times reporter Carlotta Gall with a unit of the 101st Airborne Division. Silva was evacuated and taken to Kandahar Airfield, an American and NATO base, and then to a military hospital in Germany, according to Chris Hondros (a Getty Images photographer now in Afghanistan) where he was receiving treatment.

The South African native has photographed wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, southern Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East and won many awards for his work. He is also the author with Greg Marinovich of "The Bang-Bang Club," which chronicles four photographers in South Africa in the 1990s. The Digital Filmmaker has a gripping, tragic excerpt from the book on their site, which describes one instance of the toll conflict photojournalism too often claims.

Our thoughts are with Mr. Silva, his family and his colleagues. Read and see more in the Times' Lens blog.