December 6, 2024
Reporters Without Borders urges investigation into 2 reporters’ deaths
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called for an independent investigation into the deaths of two journalists in northern Syria during the rapid rebel advance.
The head of RSF in Germany, Anja Osterhaus, said crimes against war correspondents “cannot go unpunished.”
Award-winning photojournalist Anas Alkharboutli, who was working for German news agency DPA, was killed during an airstrike near the city of Hama on December 4.
Mustafa al-Kurdi, working for Turkish state media TRT and for Focus Aleppo, was killed in Aleppo on November 30. RSF said he was shot by forces loyal to Assad while in a car.
“The heinous murders of Anas Alkharboutli, killed in an air strike, and Mustafa al-Kurdi, murdered by Bashar al-Assad’s army, both took place as fighting between opposition groups and the regime’s forces began,” Jonathan Dagher, the head of RSF’s Middle East Desk, said.
“Independent investigations must be launched immediately to determine who is responsible for these crimes and bring them to justice,” he said.
Dagher also said that Assad’s dictatorship was “responsible for the vast majority of the deaths of 194 journalists massacred in the line of duty since the start of the 2011 revolution and the war that followed.”
