DIPLOMATS and colleagues have praised two journalists slain in Sierra Leone as courageous men who sacrificed their lives to tell the tale of war. Reuters journalist Kurt Schork, a 53-year-old American, and Associated Press cameraman-producer Miguel Gil Moreno, 32, of Barcelona, Spain, died in an ambush on Wednesday afternoon. Four Sierra Leone Army soldiers were killed and two other Reuters journalists — television cameraman Mark Chisholm, a South African, and photographer Yannis Behrakis — were wounded when suspected rebels ambushed them about 87 km from Freetown. Chisholm, a South African and Behrakis, a Greek, are veterans like Schork of numerous conflicts, and the three often worked together. “These were professionals, seeking to report on a bloody conflict that has already taken too many lives,” UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a statement.