UNESCO: A Journalist is Killed Every Five Days Worldwide

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) states that a journalist is killed every five days around the world due to their professional activities. In a statement issued on Wednesday, November 3, UNESCO announced that from 2006 to 2015, at least 827 journalists were killed globally, with 115 of them losing their lives in the last year alone. Accordingly, 2015 was the second deadliest year for journalists in the past decade. UNESCO notes that this report does not include other forms of violence against journalists, such as torture, arbitrary detention, abduction, or harassment. The report indicates that out of 213 journalists killed between 2014 and 2015, 78 were in Arab countries. Most of these casualties were due to wars and conflicts in countries like Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya. During this period, 51 journalists were killed in Latin America and the Caribbean, 34 in Asia, 27 in Africa, and 12 in Central and Eastern Europe. Nearly half of the online journalists killed in the past two years were reporters and bloggers covering the war in Syria. UNESCO states that Iraq and Syria are the deadliest countries for journalists, followed by Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.