At least 65 journalists were killed around the world because of their work last year, the highest figure for 13 years, and nearly half of them died in Iraq, a leading media watchdog reported on Monday.
The figure compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, in its annual report, "Attacks on the Press," was one more than that cited by the New York-based group in a December 18 statement and compares with 56 in 2006. Last year's toll is one lower than the 66 journalists killed in 1994 but that figure was swollen by the genocide in Rwanda.
Other groups have reported higher figures for 2007, with Paris-based Reporters Without Borders saying 86 journalists were killed. CPJ says it applies the strictest criteria for the work-related nature of deaths and is still looking into 23 other cases.
In Iraq, 32 journalists - the same figure as in 2006 - were killed last year, all but one of them Iraqis, as well as 12 media support workers, who include translators, fixers, guards and drivers, CPJ said.
The report called the Iraq war "the deadliest conflict for journalists in recent history," with 125 journalists and 49 support workers killed since the US-led invasion in March 2003.
But it said: "Improving security conditions in parts of the country in 2007 may have had an effect on media deaths, as most occurred in the first seven months of the year."
Second deadliest country for media last year was Somalia, with seven deaths. Five died in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, two in Afghanistan and Eritrea and one in Haiti, Honduras, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nepal, the Palestinian territories, Paraguay, Peru, Russia, Turkey, the United States and Zimbabwe.
On the positive side, the report found that for the first time in years there were no work-related media deaths in the Philippines or Colombia.
The CPJ said some seven in 10 of journalist deaths last year were murder, with the others due to combat cross-fire. "Murder, after all, is the ultimate form of censorship," CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour said in a preface to the report, adding that about 85 percent of the killings went unpunished.