Impunity for killings of journalists rises to 86 per cent, UNESCO's biennial safety report finds

2 November 2026

UNESCO has brought out its biennial study of how journalists are killed and how rarely anyone is punished for it, published around 2 November, the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists.
For 2024-2025 it puts the share of journalist killings worldwide that go unpunished at 86 per cent, a point above the previous two years.
That is the first increase in over a decade; the agency has kept the series since 2012.
The study counts 189 journalists and media workers killed over the two years, a fifth more than before and the highest total since 2014-2015, of whom 127 died in conflict zones.
Drones killed 50 of them, roughly two in five of the conflict-zone deaths, and the report treats this as a threat of a new kind.
Where there is no war the unpunished share has come down from 94 per cent in 2012 to 77 per cent, and killings there are at an eighteen-year low.
The Arab States had the most verified killings at 97, ahead of Latin America and the Caribbean at 37 and Asia-Pacific at 34.
Khaled El-Enany, the Director-General of UNESCO, said reporters covering the front lines of war are paying for it with their lives more and more often.