By Mustafa Caglayan
NEW YORK
At least 60 journalists were killed on the job in 2014, including 17 who died as a direct result of covering the civil war in Syria, the Committee to Protect Journalists said in its annual report Tuesday.
The New York-based group said it was still investigating the deaths of at least 18 other journalists to determine if they were work-related.
The latest figures brought the death toll of journalists from the Syrian civil war to 79 since the conflict began in March 2011.
Nearly half of all journalists killed in 2014 died in the Middle East.
Although 2014's overall toll is lower than the 70 journalists killed last year, an unusually high percentage of casualties were international journalists.
Fourteen of the victims were members of the international press, compared with six in 2013, according to the report.
The murder of two American freelance journalists by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants in August and September brought to light the dangers of working as a foreign journalist in conflict zones.
James Foley, who had been kidnapped in Syria in November 2012, was executed by the members of the group, which published an online video of the murder on Aug. 14. Two weeks later, the group released another video showing the beheading of Steven Sotloff, another American journalist who had been abducted in August 2013.
Despite increased risks to Western correspondents working in conflict zones, the overwhelming majority of journalists under threat for their work continue to be local, the group said.
The report said at least four journalists and three media workers were killed while covering Israel's 51-day military offensive on the Gaza Strip in July and August, in which more than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 73 Israelis were killed.
On July 9, a driver for the Gaza-based agency Media 24 was killed when his car, marked with large stickers that read "TV", was hit by an Israeli strike.
The deaths of at least five journalists and two media workers in Ukraine in 2014 were the first journalism-related killings in the country since 2001, the report said.
The Committee to Protect Journalists began compiling records on journalism-related deaths in 1992.
According to its records, Iraq, Syria and the Philippines have been the deadliest countries for journalists since that year.
www.aa.com.tr/en
