The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has published its 35th annual report on journalists and media workers killed in relation to their work in 2025. The report documents the killing of 128 media professionals, including 11 women and nine accidental deaths. These figures confirm a worrying global truth: the murder of journalists has become an accepted tool of war, repression, and information control. The IFJ calls for the Member States of the United Nations to urgently adopt the IFJ-led International Convention on the Safety and Independence of Journalists to end the cycle of violence and impunity.
For the third consecutive year, the Middle East and Arab World was the deadliest region for journalists in 2025. This was primarily due to the war in Gaza, Palestine, where a fragile ceasefire was only reached in October 2025. With 74 journalists killed – including 56 in Palestine and one accidental death in Iran – the Middle East and Arab World region accounted for 58% of all media professionals killed worldwide. However, media staff were also killed elsewhere: 18 journalists were killed in Africa (including seven accidental deaths in Nigeria and one in Burundi), 15 in the Asia-Pacific region, 11 in the Americas and 10 in Europe.
The IFJ has selected five stories about the 128 media professionals killed in 2025. Its aim is to highlight the human aspect of the figures in the report, as well as to pay tribute to the brave and committed journalists who continue to report regardless of life-threatening dangers.
Africa, Sudan: Farouk Ahmed Mohamed Al-Zaher, Ibrahim Mohamed Mudawi, Magdy Abdel Rahman Fakhr El-Din and Waji Jaafar Mohammed Onwar
A team from the Sudanese National Television – three media workers and a driver – was killed in a drone strike carried out by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on 1 March as they reported on the Sudanese Armed Forces’ (SAF) takeover of the Republican Palace in Khartoum. The media professionals killed were producer of programmes Farouk Ahmed Mohamed Al-Zaher; director of programmes Ibrahim Mohamed Mudawi; cameraman Magdy Abdel Rahman Fakhr El-Din; and driver Waji Jaafar Mohammed Onwar. The crew had been covering the latest developments in the capital when the strike hit.
For the second consecutive year, Sudan was the deadliest country for journalists in Africa, with at least six journalists killed in relation to their work in 2025. Since the civil war erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF paramilitary group, the country has become one of the most dangerous places in the world to report.
The IFJ has condemned the systematic targeting of journalists by the RSF. It has also called on the international community, particularly the United Nations, to ensure an independent investigation into the killings of journalists so that the perpetrators are brought to justice.
Americas, Peru: Mitzar Castillejos
Mitzar Castillejos never arrived at Radio Latín Plus 107.7 FM to deliver the daily news on 12 December. As he left his home in the town of Aguaytía, in the Ucayali region, hitmen shot and fatally injured the news presenter on his way to the radio station. Castillejos, who was known for reporting on alleged corruption by local authorities, was taken to a hospital in Lima, where he died on 26 December.
He was one of four journalists killed in Peru in 2025. According to the Asociación Nacional de Periodistas (ANP), it has been the deadliest year for journalists in the country so far this century. There had been no murders of media workers in Peru for nearly a decade, yet four journalists were killed in relation to their work in 2025 alone.
“These murders could have a muzzling effect because they create a feeling among journalists that no one in our profession is safe,” warned ANP President Zuliana Lainez. The ANP and the IFJ called on the police to conduct a transparent investigation, examining whether the crime was linked to Castillejos’ work as a journalist.
Asia-Pacific, India: Mukesh Chandrakar
The body of freelance journalist Mukesh Chandrakar was discovered in a septic tank at the home of a private contractor in the central state of Chhattisgarh on 3 January. Mukesh Chandrakar had last been seen on the evening of 1 January.
Just days earlier, on 25 December 2024, Mukesh Chandrakar had reported for New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV) on alleged irregularities in a road construction project between Gangaloor and Nelasanar village. The report prompted the government to open an inquiry. The contractor responsible for the project, Suresh Chandrakar, was a relative of the journalist.
After tracing the last recorded location of the journalist’s mobile phone, the police found his body. They later accused three relatives and the journalist’s employer of involvement in the killing and in attempting to hide the body. The journalist was brutally beaten to death following an argument with one of his relatives and his employer and died of his injuries.
Mukesh Chandrakar, one of four journalists killed in India in 2025, was murdered for his attempts to expose wrongdoing, as is the case for many media professionals worldwide. The IFJ and its affiliates in the country, the National Union of Journalists – India (NUJ-I) and the Indian Journalists Union (IJU), are closely monitoring the case to ensure the perpetrators are held accountable. Of the 15 cases documented in the Asia-Pacific, arrests were made in connection to just five of the killings – with most of these arrests made in India.
Europe, Ukraine: Olena Gramova and Yevgen Karmazin
Ukrainian war correspondent Olena Gramova and cameraman Yevgen Karmazin were at a petrol station in the city of Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, on 23 October to report on a Russian bombardment that had hit the city the previous day. Both worked for state-funded news organisation Freedom Media. At 09:37 a Russian Lancet drone deliberately struck the vehicle, killing Gramova and Karmazin instantly and seriously injuring a third reporter, Alexander Kolychev.
This attack occurred a week after Ivan Zuev, a Russian war correspondent for state-controlled news agency RIA Novosti, was killed by a drone attack in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine; and 20 days after French photojournalist Antoni Lallican was killed by a Russian drone in the Donbas region. “Today, in Ukraine, the main threat to journalists, as to all civilians, is Russian drones hunting people,” said Sergiy Tomilenko, president of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU).
Nine of the ten recorded murders of journalists in Europe in 2025 are related to the war between Russia and Ukraine, which is now entering its fifth year.
Middle East and the Arab World, Palestine: Walaa Al Jabari
Journalist Walaa Al Jabari, her husband and their four children were killed when their home in the Tal Al-Hawa neighbourhood of southwest Gaza City was hit by an Israeli airstrike on 23 July. Al Jabari, who worked as a newspaper editor for several local media outlets, was pregnant at the time of her death.
She is one of the 56 Palestinian journalists killed by Israel in Gaza in 2025, and one of the at least 234 that have been killed since the war began on 7 October 2023. Despite the fragile ceasefire agreed in October 2025, the IFJ has continued to record the killing of journalists amid the ongoing destruction and indiscriminate violence in Gaza.
In the war’s aftermath, the IFJ set out urgent demands to support Gaza’s journalistic community and the media sector. The demands include holding those responsible for killing journalists to account; providing emergency support to journalists and the media; and granting foreign journalists unrestricted access to Gaza.
IFJ President Dominique Pradalié said: “Year after year, journalists are killed for doing their jobs: publishing information in the public interest and exposing corruption and war crimes. We are campaigning for the adoption of a legal instrument designed to end this cycle of impunity: an international convention led by the IFJ that will ensure those who plan, order or carry out the murder of a journalist are held accountable. It is time for UN member states to adopt this convention once and for all in order to protect journalists, defend press freedom and safeguard our democracies. All democratic countries must publicly support it.”
Download the report in English: here.
Take part in our digital vigil and light a candle to pay tribute to the media professionals who were killed in 2025: here.
Source: IFJ
