At least 48 reporters have been killed while doing their job in 2016, according to new figures from the Committee to Protect Journalists.
But the death toll is down from the 72 reached in 2015.
The organisation said 26 of the reporters killed in 2016 died in combat or crossfire, covering conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan and Somalia, the Associated Press (AP) news agency reported.
The group said just 18 of the journalists killed in 2016 were directly targeted in retaliation for their work – the lowest number since 2002.
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Syria was the deadliest country for journalists for the fifth successive year – at least 14 journalists were killed there this year.
Those killed in Syria included Osama Jumaa, a 20-year-old photographer and video journalist reporting in Aleppo (city pictured top) for the international photo agency Images Live.
He was travelling in an ambulance to the site of a bombing when the vehicle was hit by Syrian government artillery fire, according to the photo agency. A second round of fire struck the ambulance and killed Jumaa and a paramedic.
Six journalists were killed in Iraq and another six in Yemen this year.
The 48 journalists on the list were killed between January 1 and December 15.
The list drawn up by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, which has been tracking deaths among reporters and broadcasters since 1992, does not include journalists who died of illness or were killed in car or plane accidents unless the crash was caused by hostile action.
The committee is investigating the deaths of at least 27 other journalists in 2016 to determine whether they were work-related.
Picture: Reuters
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