Risky Job As 68 Journalists, 104 Media Workers Killed In 2024
By Anthony Maliki with agency reportsū
At least sixty-eight journalists and 104 media workers were killed globally in various circumstances in 2024.
According to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) of the 104 fatalities, over half occurred in Gaza in the Israeli conflict, UNESCO says at least more than 60% of the fatalities happened in conflict zones, notably Palestine.
Besides, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports 91 deaths, with over half also linked to the Israel-Gaza conflict.
According to data, 16 journalists were killed in Gaza in 2024.
Other countries where journalists were killed this year include Pakistan, 7, Bangladesh, 5, Mexico, 5, Lebanon, 2 and Haiti, 2.
Also, a Russian missile strike on a hotel in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, resulted in the death of Ryan Evans, a former British soldier working as a safety advisor for Reuters, and injuries to several journalists.
There were also casualties in Colombia, Iraq and Myanmar. Sudan accounted for highest number of journalists killed Africa in 2024 with five journalists losing their lives in the war-torn country. In all, at least eight journalists were killed across Africa in 2024.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists 2024 index, 261 journalists were murdered in connection with their work between September 1, 2013–the year the United Nations declared November 2 as the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists–and August 31, 2023.
Sadly, during this 10-year period, no-one has been held to account in 204–more than 78% of these cases.
However, the CPJ has recorded the murders of 956 journalists in connection with their work since it began tracking them in 1992 with 757 or than 79%– have gone wholly unprosecuted.
In an article by Arlene Getz, CPJ Editorial Director, said the persistent lack of justice for murdered reporters is a major threat to press freedom.
She explained that ten years after the United Nations declared an international day to end impunity for crimes against journalists – and more than 30 years after CPJ began documenting these killings – almost 80% of their killings remain unsolved.
According to her, Haiti now ranks as the world’s third-worst impunity offender, behind Syria and Somalia respectively. Somalia, along with Iraq, Mexico, the Philippines, Pakistan, and India, have been on the index every year since its inception.
It said Syria, South Sudan, Afghanistan, and Brazil also have been there for years – a sobering reminder of the persistent and pernicious nature of impunity.
Besides, Arlene said in several countries in the European Union, typically considered the safest places for journalists, press freedom has come under increasing pressure, with journalist murders remaining unsolved in Malta, Slovakia, Greece, and the Netherlands.
It pointed out that in Malta and Slovakia, full justice in the killings of Daphne Caruana Galizia and Ján Kuciak is yet to be achieved while Greece has yet to hold anyone accountable for the 2010 killing of Sokratis Giolias, with a recent report by “A Safer World for the Truth” – a collaboration of rights groups that includes CPJ – finding gaps in authorities’ investigations into the murder of Giolias and the similar killing of Giorgos Karaivaz 11 years later.
It said, in the Netherlands, nine suspects are awaiting trial for the fatal shooting of Dutch reporter Peter R. de Vries as he left a TV studio in 2021.
While it remains unclear whether De Vries and Karaivaz were targeted because of their work, colleagues in Greece and Holland have told CPJ their deaths have left lingering insecurity and self-censorship in the media community. De Vries’ death had “a chilling effect on journalists,” Dutch crime reporter Paul Vugts – the Netherlands’ first journalist to receive full police protection because of work-related death threats – told CPJ.
