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Afghanistan, Pakistan Among Most Dangerous Places For Journalists, RSF Reports


RFE/RL journalists Sabawoon Kakar (left), Abadullah Hananzai (center), and Maharram Durrani were killed in Kabul on April 30, 2018.
RFE/RL journalists Sabawoon Kakar (left), Abadullah Hananzai (center), and Maharram Durrani were killed in Kabul on April 30, 2018.

Nearly 1,700 journalists have been killed worldwide over the past two decades between 2003 and 2022, an average of more than 80 a year, according to an analysis published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Iraq and Syria were the most dangerous countries to work in as a journalist, accounting for "a combined total of 578 journalists killed in the past 20 years, or more than a third of the worldwide total," RSF said. They are followed by Mexico (125), the Philippines (107), Pakistan (93), Afghanistan (81), and Somalia (78). Three RFE/RL journalists were killed in Afghanistan in 2018 and one -- Mohammad Ilyas Dayee -- in 2020.

RFE/RL has been declared an "undesirable organization" by the Russian government.

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