Capuozzo, known for his reports from Sarajevo and for bringing a wounded baby to Italy, announced in October that he had cancer.Toni Capuozzo, one of Italy’s best-known war correspondents, has died at the age of 77, weeks after revealing he had a tumour.  Journalist, author and television presenter, Capuozzo was a mainstay of Mediaset news for more than three decades, bringing conflicts from the former Yugoslavia to the Middle East into Italian living rooms.   In October he shared news of his illness on Facebook, posting a photo from a hospital room with the medical staff treating him.   Tributes poured in from friends, colleagues and the public. Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni extended her condolences to Capuozzo's family, writing on X that with his death "Italian journalism loses an unmistakable voice, who throughout his career chronicled so many major events that shaped history through his reporting and eyewitness accounts".   Deputy premiers Antonio Tajani and Matteo Salvini both hailed Capuozzo as "courageous", while Enrico Mentana, the former head of TG5 who now works at TgLa7, wrote on social media: "Ciao Toni, amico per sempre" (Goodbye Toni, friend forever). Early life and politics Born Antonio Capuozzo on 7 December 1948 in Palmanova, in the northeastern province of Udine, he grew up in Friuli before moving to Trento to study sociology. He was involved in the Italian Communist Party and then in the extra-parliamentary left-wing movement Lotta Continua.   He had taken odd jobs and wandered across Europe before turning to journalism, and travelled to Nicaragua during the Somoza dictatorship. In 1979 he began his career at Lotta Continua’s newspaper, covering political crises in South America.   He later worked for Reporter, Panorama and Epoca, reporting from earthquake-hit Montenegro and travelling to Argentina on the eve of the 1982 Falklands conflict, where he secured an interview with the writer Jorge Luis Borges. He also worked on Giovanni Minoli’s TV programme Mixer, mostly on the mafia, and was a close collaborator of journalist Giuliano Ferrara. Mediaset and the wars Capuozzo joined Mediaset in the early 1990s and from 1992 was its lead correspondent on the world’s most dangerous fronts, including the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Afghanistan and the Middle East. In 2002 he was trapped in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity during an Israeli army operation.   He was most closely identified with the siege of Sarajevo, the longest in modern history. There he met Kemal, a baby of about eight months who had lost a leg and whose mother had been killed. Capuozzo took the child to Italy, hiding him under a bulletproof vest. Kemal entered the country on a humanitarian permit and lived with Capuozzo’s family for several years, until the end of the war, before returning to Sarajevo.   In 2004, during the occupation of Iraq, he and a TG5 crew were briefly abducted near Najaf by Shia militiamen. The ordeal lasted around 20 minutes, after which the captors released them and apologised.   He was deputy editor of TG5 until 2013 and also worked for TG4 and Studio Aperto. He devised and presented the current affairs programme Terra! on Canale 5 and Rete 4, which ran until 2017. Later career and writing In recent years he made TV specials on the centenary of the Communist Party (2021), the 30th anniversary of the Bosnian war, the death of Silvio Berlusconi and the death of Pope Francis in April 2025. This summer he presented the Rete 4 series Giganti - I protagonisti, on figures including John Paul II, Queen Elizabeth II, John F. Kennedy and Leonardo da Vinci.   He also wrote books, the last being Una piccola guerra, on the 6 May 1976 Friuli earthquake, and in 2009 performed the stage show Tre uomini di parola with the writer Mauro Corona, donating the proceeds to a shelter for a burns centre in Herat, Afghanistan.   His politics shifted over the years from the radical left to conservative positions, including criticism of European policy on the green transition and migration.   Capuozzo once said that journalism “doesn’t save anyone’s life” and “will never stop any war”.   Photo credit: D-VISIONS / Shutterstock.com