At least 30 journalists were killed worldwide for their reports in 2020, pursuant to data published by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The report tagged Mexico as the deadliest country with five journalists killed. Syria and Afghanistan, followed, with four journalists each.

The deadliest country for journalists, Mexico, is home to powerful criminal groups that smuggle illegal drugs. These groups are parallelly engaged in human trafficking, money laundering, extortion, and contract killings. The intermittent conflicts between rival groups have resulted in killings nearly doubling since 2014.

After Mexico, it is the war-torn countries, Syria and Afghanistan, that saw journalists killed as a direct outcome of the war between several groups.

In India, the watchdog group finds that Rakesh Singh of Rashtriya Swaroop and Shubham Mani Tripathi of Kampu Mail- both political reporters- were killed on November 28 and June 19, 2020, respectively.

The report indicates the environment surrounding journalists is growing unsafe. The CPJ says that out of these 30 killings in 2020, 21 were in direct response to their work as compared to 10 in 2019.

So far at least 1,395 journalists have been killed for their work since 1992.

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