MUMBAI: BBC has appointed Dumeetha Luthra as its new Sri Lanka correspondent.

Luthra has already joined her new post in the Sri Lankan capital. Prior to that she was the news correspondent in Baghdad.

Luthra began her career in BBC in 1995 as a producer. She was based in London till 2000. Following that she was set up in Croatia and as a producer covered the fall of Milosevic, the conflict in Macedonia and other Balkan events.

After 11 September 2001, she went to Afghanistan and was working there until December 2002. In 2003 at the time of the Iraq war, Luthra was in Northern Iraq to cover the story for BBC News. After a brief stay in London she returned to Basra to report on the present turmoil in the country and then went on to Baghdad for a stint there, informs an official communiqué.

The highpoints of Luthra's journalistic career include the coverage of the fall of Kabul in Afghanistan in November 2001 along with the celebrated journalist John Simpson (BBC World Affairs Unit editor). The fall of Kirkuk in April 2003 and days later the fall of Tikrit. She spent five months in Basra covering the Iraq story from a different perspective, providing a real day to day picture outside of the daily bombings from Baghdad, informs the release.

According to BBC South Asia bureau editor Paul Danahar, "Dumeetha comes to one of the most important assignments in South Asia. She brings to the post the right mix of experience and enthusiasm essential to report on the wide-ranging stories from Sri Lanka. BBC's reporting from Sri Lanka has been highly respected in the past, I am sure Dumeetha will reinforce that credibility."

Speaking about her latest appointment, Luthra, an economics graduate said, "I'm really looking forward to working in Sri Lanka. I've travelled so much in the past few years so Sri Lanka will provide a great opportunity to really discover stories in a fascinating and beautiful country."