Cathal, who quit his job with Reuters after winning the prize in 2018, was asleep on the morning of July 17 when he was woken by a phone call from another former colleague.

“I was in shock. When you receive news like that you don’t really know how to react,” he says. “Your body... it’s all very surreal. It took two or three days for it to sink in.”

Cathal described Danish as a “charming guy” with “a beautiful smile” and an “amazing head of black hair”, and said he avoided reading details of his death.

“I knew I wasn’t going to be able to help the situation at all and I don’t need to know the gruesome details of why a friend and colleague is dead,” he said. 

“I am aware what happened wasn’t good and now there is a wife and two young children without a husband and father. So that is very tough. It’s not an easy thing.”

On the morning of July 16, Danish, an Indian national, was killed when the Afghan commandos he was accompanying to Spin Boldak, a town on the Afghan border with Pakistan, were ambushed by Taliban forces.

Following the attack, The New York Times reported, Danish’s body was severely mutilated. He was 38 years old.

Today, Cathal wants to remember how his friend lived.

“Danish was an extremely talented photographer and when I first took the role as chief photographer in India I was really excited to be working with him because I had seen his pictures from afar and was an admirer of his work.” he said.

“He was a consummate professional and he had that magic touch. His pictures were on a slightly higher level. Whenever you asked him to go on assignment you knew he was always going to give 100pc. There was no one else you would want to do it.”

The last time they met he recalls “we were in New York and then Toronto after the Pulitzers. It was a special occasion and we were all really happy to have achieved what would have been the pinnacle of most people’s career.

“We had a laugh and a couple of beers and it was nice to be able to see him outside of work because generally we would talk about assignments.”

This weekend, as news outlets make decisions about whether to keep their journalists and photographers in Afghanistan, Cathal says: “When I think about the sacrifice my friends have made in order to highlight what’s happening in these places it’s difficult to hear people talk about ‘fake news’ and talk negatively about journalism.

“It takes a special type of person who is willing to risk their life in order to tell the truth about what’s happening.

“The likes of Danish and the brave photographers and journalists who are there at the minute are doing their job because they believe the world needs to know what is happening.

“If it wasn’t for the likes of Danish we wouldn’t be seeing these pictures or hearing what is going on.

"Not everyone wants to do this job so for the few who do, they are out there risking their lives for no credit at all at a time when it’s never been more important.”

In 2006, Cathal spent time in Afghanistan meeting local tribal leaders and visiting schools where young girls were enjoying their right to an education.

He describes it as “one of the most beautiful countries” he has ever seen and says he found the local people “were extremely friendly and very kind”.

“Now those young girls are mothers themselves and they have children of their own and for the second time in the life their liberties are going to be taken away and it’s just very, very hard to comprehend what is in store for them.”

Cathal has a grim view of the future. “These pictures are harrowing but this is probably only the start,” he says.

"Things are going to get worse. What you are seeing now is only the beginning of the nightmare for Afghans.”

For Cathal, who now runs photography workshops in Belfast and Dublin, the lasting affects of documenting people’s stories in the midst of war is something he continues to deal with “on a day-to-day basis”.

“I have had to confront these memories and deal with them in whatever way I can,” he says.

"I have had to find some sort of an uneasy peace but it hasn’t been easy.” But in the same breath he adds: “Still, I wouldn’t change what I do for the world.

“I am extremely lucky to have witnessed what I have witnessed and to have been able to highlight to the world some of the things that have been happening.

"To have been a voice for the voiceless. It is a privilege and an honour — so you have to take the consequences with that too… somebody has to do it you know?”

Asked if he will ever return to work on the front line, there is a long silence at the end of the phone. “That’s a very difficult question to answer because I can’t say 100pc ‘no’ and I can’t say 100pc ‘yes’, which is actually telling in itself,” he says.

"At one stage I was saying ‘definitely not’. It was after I came home. But I wouldn’t say ‘definitely not’ now.”