AFP’s former Asia-Pacific news editor Kevin McElderry died on July 21, 2010, after a courageous two-year battle with cancer. He was 44.
McElderry, one of the agency’s finest writers and editors, joined the agency in 1995. Born in Nigeria, but really a native of Northern Ireland, he worked in Paris, Berlin and London and undertook many reporting missions further afield.
Highlights of his reporting career included accompanying Tony Blair to the US presidential retreat at Camp David, recounting the death pangs of the Mobutu regime in Zaire, and following the case of the German cannibal who escaped a murder conviction because his victim had agreed to be eaten.
For three years from 2006, he was Hong Kong-based news editor and deputy editor-in-chief for the Asia-Pacific region. Diagnosed with cancer while in Hong Kong, he continued to work during treatment, including after his return to Paris in 2009. He died at home in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
Known in the agency for his great writing style, kindness and sense of humour – including his less-than-credible claim that he always tried hard to avoid exercise and non-essential work - he is survived by his wife, Ailsa, and two children, Sophie and Tristan.
