Dith Pran the Cambodian photo-journalist whose escape from the Khmer Rouge became the subject of the award-winning film “The Killing Fields,’‘ has died reports the Guardian.

Pran died of pancreatic cancer, according to Sydney Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times.

Dith Pran was working as a fixer for Schanberg in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, when the Vietnam War reached its chaotic end in April 1975 and both countries were taken over by Communist forces.

Schanberg helped his family get out but was forced to leave Pran behind after the capital fell, only escaping four years later where he settled in the US and worked for the New York Times.

Later he became a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and founded the Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project, dedicated to educating people on the history of the Khmer Rouge regime.