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Reporters Without Borders denounce journalists' killings

The 2022 World Press Freedom Index map   -  
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JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP or licensors

Reporters Without Borders

International NGO Reporters Without Borders has released figures showing 1,668 have died in violence over the past two decades. 

 The war in Ukraine is the main cause of the upturn in 2022, with 8 journalists' deaths since Russia invaded.

Fifty-seven journalists have lost their lives worldwide. Separately, 533 have been detained, 65 have been seized as hostages, while 49 have been reported as missing.

The NGO points to 2012 and 2013 as being the deadliest years for journalists on reporting missions. The war in Syria was the main factor in those years.

But it wasn't just war zones. For over two decades Russia has been Europe's most dangerous country with targeted killings of reporters such as Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya.

France also features near the top of Europe's dangerous nation list, but that's due to the one-off attack by Islamic terrorists on the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris in 2015, in which 12 people were killed.