Sue Lloyd-Roberts

Died: October 13, 2015

SUE Lloyd-Roberts, who has died aged 64 after treatment for acute myeloid leukaemia, was a journalist who made her name on ITN and the BBC for stories about human rights abuses around the world. She specialised in going undercover into countries where journalists can get into trouble, and she often did – she had been imprisoned many times, but always, in the end, went back.

For many years, she worked as the BBC's roving human rights correspondent, travelling to Syria, North Korea and many other dangerous countries. She reported, among many other subjects, on child labour in India, Chinese repression in Tibet and paedophile tourism in Sri Lanka.

In recent years, Lloyd-Roberts had also developed a parallel career as an hotelier, after she and her husband, the BBC news producer Nick Guthrie, bought a B&B in Fornalutx, a village in Majorca. She had also been writing a blog about her treatment for leukaemia after being diagnosed earlier this year and had written about receiving a stem cell transplant after an appeal to find a donor.

Born Susan Ann Lloyd-Roberts in London to a Welsh family, Lloyd-Roberts was educated at Cheltenham Ladies College and studied French and Italian at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She began her broadcasting career at ITN, working for News at Ten, before becoming a special correspondent for the BBC.

In 2011, she attracted the anger of the Chinese government when she went undercover into the country and reported on the harvesting of organs from executed prisoners – she was sentenced to a seven-year jail sentence in absentia.

The following year, she travelled to Homs in Syria to report from the area while posing as an academic and told Variety how she prepared for the trip. "I arrange my belongings in such a way that there is absolutely no evidence on me that I am a journalist," she said. "Everything has to be sanitized. Laptops have to be prepared, with my cover story intact. Every time you are undercover, you have to assume that you're going to be arrested any day."

Going undercover in this way was par for the course for Lloyd-Roberts. She was not a traditional television reporter, she said; she did not cover big events or wars and was not even on screen very often. But when she was, it was always to report on the terrible ways in which oppressive regimes abuse their people.

Twelve years ago, she changed direction slightly when she and her husband bought their B&B in Fornalutx. Lloyd-Roberts had first come to the village when her father rented a villa there when she was 14 and had remembered the place with great affection. Her husband also had a connection, as his godfather had a holiday home in the village.

Lloyd-Roberts said that some of her friends and family were sceptical about the project. "My brother, who's something important in the City, said to me, 'What on earth are you doing! You've never run a small business and you know absolutely nothing about economics'," she said. "And I replied, 'Well, there's only one rule: you have to have more coming in than going out'."

For Lloyd-Roberts the house in Majorca was also a way of rediscovering parts of her life that had been lost to journalism . She had lived and worked under pressure for so long, she said, and had forgotten what life was all about.

It was while Lloyd-Roberts was out in Majorca earlier this year that she first experienced problems with her health. Writing on her blog, she said: "I was loading the dishwasher, a disagreeable task at the best of times but not normally something that makes you collapse, but that's what happened to me. I am a doctor's daughter and the rule drummed in to me as a child is that you never bother a doctor. But Nick insisted.

"Four days later, I queued up at "Urgencias" at a hospital in Palma. The blood test revealed a very low white blood cell count and I was admitted for more tests. The blood count kept falling, leaving me with severe neutropenia. A biopsy a week later suggested acute leukaemia."

Lloyd-Roberts then flew to London where the diagnosis was confirmed. After several sessions of chemotherapy, she was told that a stem cell transplant was her best chance of survival and she launched an appeal to find a donor. She got the news that one had been found while working on a story for Newsnight.

"I am making a film for Newsnight," she wrote on her blog, "and found myself filming in Westminster Abbey. Ever since this began, my Roman Catholic friends have been reciting novenas and lighting candles and my Buddhist friends have been chanting and lighting incense sticks and I had sort of forgotten the denomination in to which I was baptised, the C of E.

"Desperate enough to try anything, I touched the tomb of Edward the Confessor and lit a candle in the Abbey and 'ping' went my phone - a message from the hospital that I had a donor. So, there's proof - Henry VIII and Archbishop Cranmer are vindicated. The Anglicans have it!"

She died on Sunday following complications from the transplant. She had won many awards for her journalism, including an Emmy for her report from North Korea in 2011. She was also made an MBE and CBE for her services to journalism.

She was married twice and is survived by her husband and two children from her first marriage.