Over the 11 months of 2023, 45 journalists were killed in the world while performing their work duties — this was the lowest figure since 2002. This follows from a report by the international non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders.
The majority of journalists, 23 people, died while preparing reports in combat zones. Of these, 17 correspondents were killed in the war between Hamas and Israel. Also during the year, two journalists died due to the war in Ukraine.
Reporters Without Borders noted that in the war between Hamas and Israel, a total of 63 people associated with the journalistic profession were killed, but not in all cases managed to prove that their deaths occurred due to the performance of correspondent work.
The organization also presented in the report statistics on the detention of journalists around the world. Of the 521 journalists detained, 121 media workers were detained in China. The third country in terms of the number of persecuted journalists was Belarus — 39 people have been detained in the republic since January.
According to Reporters Without Borders estimates, 28 journalists ended up in pre-trial detention centers and colonies in Russia over the year, including two media workers with citizenship USA — Evan Gershkovich and Alsou Kurmashev.