38 journalists died while working in war zones in 2023, 28 in 2022 and 20 in 2021. As UNESCO confirms in its annual report, most of the victims were in the Middle East: 19 in Palestine, 3 in Lebanon, 2 in Israel. The other victims fell in Afghanistan, Cameroon, Syria and Ukraine. “If the total number of journalists who died while carrying out their work decreased from 88 victims in 2022 to 65 in 2023, this trend hides a serious phenomenon, namely the increase in journalists killed in war zones,” said the Director General of UNESCO Audrey Azoulay. In addition, countless media infrastructures and offices were damaged or destroyed. Finally, there have been numerous threats to journalists in these parts of the world, including physical attacks, detentions and confiscation of equipment. For this reason, UNESCO emphasizes, many media workers have fled or given up their work, creating “zones of silence” in many conflict countries, with serious consequences for the information of both the local population and the rest of the world. Finally, UNESCO warns of what could happen next year, in which, in addition to the ongoing conflicts, an election season will open that will affect 2.6 million people who will go to the polls in 60 countries and the increase of Violence against journalists During election periods, 759 attacks were documented in 70 countries between January 2019 and June 2022, including five murders.
