The year 2024 was the deadliest for journalists, according to the CPJ

The CPJ, which began collecting data about 30 years ago, said at least 124 journalists and media workers were killed in 2024.

The report says that increasing the number of conflicts worldwide, whether political, criminal or military, has affected the killing of journalists.

The Gaza Strip war has mostly affected the increase and number, as an unprecedented number of journalists and media workers were killed in this war, said the CPJ, which is the US-based non-governmental organisation dedicated to protecting the freedoms of journalists and rights.

Almost two-thirds of the total number of media workers killed worldwide are Palestinians, according to the report. Last year 85 journalists were killed, and 73 were killed in 2023.

“Now is the most dangerous time to be a journalist in the history of CPJ”, said CPJ Executive Director Jodie Ginsberg.

The war in Gaza is unprecedented in its impact on journalists and demonstrates a significant deterioration of global rates for protecting journalists in conflict areas, but it is far from the only country where journalists are at risk. Our figures show journalists are under attack worldwide”, she added.

The CPJ said it found that at least 24 journalists worldwide were deliberately killed for their work last year.

He said that in the Gaza and Lebanon Strip, he has documented 10 cases when journalists were killed by the Israeli army, contrary to international laws that define journalists as civilians during the conflicts. The other 14 murders of journalists occurred in Haiti, Mexico, Pakistan, Myanmar, Mozambique, India, Iraq, and Sudan in 2024.

The large number of journalists killed in 2024 tells of the increased risks facing journalists and media workers, as well as the threat to the flow of information worldwide, the CPJ said.

The total of 124 journalists killed last year exceeded the record 113 by 2007, when almost half were killed during the Iraq war.

Outside the belt of Gaza and Lebanon (three), CPJ documented the deaths of 39 journalists and media workers in 16 countries in 2024, mostly in Sudan (6), Pakistan (6), Mexico (5), Syria (4), Myanmar (3), Iraq (3) and Haiti (2).

The number of journalists' deaths in Mexico, Pakistan, India and Iraq has highlighted the major risks facing journalists in those countries, despite efforts in some of these countries to address the problem, the CPJ said.

In Mexico, which ranks among the most dangerous countries for journalists, the number of journalists killed increased from two to 2023 to five to 2024 after a period of relative peace between gangs and political groups before the elections in June 2024.

One of the killed journalists who was covering the crime was under police protection, illustrating shortcomings in Mexico's mechanisms that are supposed to protect journalists, the CPJ points out, noting that the country's justice system also fails to respond adequately and that the country is constantly among the first 10 countries to not punish journalists.

In Myanmar, increased resistance by rebel forces to the military regime resulted in the killing of three journalists. While losing in clashes with rebels, the regime is increasing its actions against independent journalists, who are increasingly treating them as hostile fighters.

The Philippines has registered the first year in two decades without a journalist being killed, which analysts say could indicate that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (Marcos) uses relatively milder tones towards the media than his predecessor, Rodrigo Dutterte, who often threatened the media.

The opposite occurred in Iraq, which experienced a wave of journalists killing from 2003 to 2020, and then there were no deaths until 2024, when Iraq and Turkey agreed to co-operate in operations against Kurdish militants, resulting in a escalation of violence in which three journalists were killed.

Murders are not the only indicator of a dangerous media landscape. No journalist was killed in Somalia, Cameroon or Afghanistan in 2024, but journalists continued to face other forms of pressure. In Afghanistan, the CPJ points out, Taliban continue to intimidate, censorship and arrest journalists.

The number of journalists and media workers killed in Ukraine fell in 2024, likely due to improvements in training and security, stricter regulations of accreditment for the work of the first line and stabilisation of war zones, according to the CPJ.

Fifteen journalists were killed in Ukraine in the first few months after the beginning of the Russian occupation in 2022, and two others were killed in 2023.

In 2024, Reuters security adviser Ryan Evans was killed in a Russian missile attack in eastern Ukraine, while Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roschchina, arrested in August 2023 while reporting on the Russian war. / REL/