UNESCO's new biennial report finds 189 journalists and media workers were killed in 2024 and 2025, the highest two-year total since 2014-2015, with impunity for their killers rising for the first time in over a decade.

The report, released for the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists on 2 November, puts the total 20% above the previous two-year period. Of those killed, 127, or 67%, died in conflict zones. The impunity rate rose to 86%, up one percentage point, the first rise since UNESCO began measuring it in 2012.

Conflict zones and drone strikes

Drone strikes killed 50 journalists, about 40% of those killed in conflict zones, and seven incidents saw several journalists killed in a single attack. By region, the highest verified case counts were in the Arab States, with 97, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean with 37 and Asia-Pacific with 34. The State of Palestine recorded the highest country totals in both years, with 30 deaths in one year and 32 in the other.

UNESCO's findings do not by themselves identify the perpetrators in each case, and the report's impunity measure tracks whether killings are resolved through the justice system. The rise in both killings and impunity, the agency warns, threatens the public's access to reliable information from the places where it is hardest and most dangerous to report.

Sources: UN News, 2 November 2026, reporting UNESCO's biennial report; DailyStraits, 2 November 2026.