At least 70 journalists killed around world in 2013
Figures compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists show that 29 journalists were killed in Syria, 10 in Iraq and six in Egypt. ● At least 70 journalists were killed around the world in 2013, including 29 who died covering the civil war in Syria and 10 in Iraq, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. ● The dead in Syria included a number of citizen journalists working to document combat in their home cities, broadcasters who worked with media outlets affiliated with either the government or the opposition, and a handful of correspondents for the foreign press, including an al-Jazeera reporter, Mohamed al-Mesalma, who was shot by a sniper. Six journalists died in Egypt. Half of those reporters were killed while reporting a 14 August crackdown by Egyptian security forces on demonstrators protesting the ousting of Mohamed Morsi. ● "The Middle East has become a killing field for journalists. While the number of journalists killed for their work has declined in some places, the civil war in Syria and a renewal of sectarian attacks in Iraq have taken an agonising toll," the committee's deputy director, Robert Mahoney, said in a statement. "The international community must prevail on all governments and armed groups to respect the civilian status of reporters and to prosecute the killers of journalists." The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has been tracking deaths among reporters and broadcasters since 1992.