Over 90 journalists killed on the job in 2018, IFJ

[Deeq A.]

Over ninety 90 journalists and media workers on-the-job have been killed since the beginning of this ending year.

The fourth estate staff died in targeted killings, bomb attacks and cross-fire incidents in 2018.

According to the new report by an international trade association, the number of journalists and media workers killed while carrying out their jobs rose again in 2018, reversing a downward trend of the previous three years.

94 journalists and media workers were killed. The figure rose up from 82 killings recorded in 2017, According to the annual report released on Monday.

Somalia soared to sixth on the list, with five killings, tied with The United States and Pakistan.

The deadliest country for people who work in the news media this year was Afghanistan, where 16 of the killings occurred. Mexico was next, with 11. Yemen had nine media slayings and Syria eight in 2018.

On 22nd of this month, a prominent journalist Awil Dahir Salad and two staffers from the London-based Universal TV station were killed in two suicide bomb explosions in Mogadishu.

Salad, 45, was a veteran reporter who worked to revive the country’s media before leaving the country in 2005 and returning several years later to work with Universal TV.

Beyond the tragedy of lives lost, such killings affect the pursuit of truth and sharing of information in communities and countries where they happen, the president of the International Federation of Journalists said.

“Journalists are targeted because they are witnesses,” the group’s president, Philippe Leruth, told The Associated Press. “And the result of this, when a journalist or many journalists are killed in a country, you see an increase of self-censorship.”

Highest number of media killings
Afghanistan: 16
Mexico: 11
Yemen: 9
Syria: 8
India: 7
Pakistan: 5
Somalia: 5
United States: 5
Philippines: 3
Ecuador: 3
Brazil: 3
Colombia: 2
Palestine: 2
Guatemala: 2

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