Dangerous year for journalists, 94 dead
The number of journalists and media workers killed while carrying out their jobs increased this year to 94, the International Federation of Journalists says.
The figure, up from 82 killings recorded in 2017, reversed the downward trend of the previous three years.
The dead included 84 journalists, camera people and technicians as well as 10 media staff members including drivers and protection officers. They died in targeted killings, bombings and cross fire incidents.
Six of the victims were women and there were also another three work-related accidental deaths.
The most dangerous place to be a journalist was Afghanistan, where 16 media workers lost their lives. In Mexico, where organised crime often targets journalists, 11 media workers were killed.
Nine were killed in Yemen, eight in Syria, seven in India, six in Somalia and five each in Pakistan and the United States.
The list “paints a situation of on-going safety crisis in journalism, which was highlighted by the cruel murder of the Washington Post columnist and Saudi national, Jamal Khashoggi,” the IFJ said.
Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October. His body has not been found.
IFJ president Philippe Leruth demanded that United Nations member states adopt a convention on the security and protection of journalists that it presented to UN missions in New York in October.
“This convention, supported by the profession as a whole, is a concrete response to crimes committed against journalists in full impunity,” he said.