27 April 2005
AP CAMERAMAN KILLED
In Iraq, the death toll of journalists and media staff continues to mount. On 23 April 2005, Iraqi cameraman Saleh Ibrahim was killed while covering fighting in the city of Mosul, reported the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF).
Ibrahim, a cameraman for Associated Press Television News, was killed by gunfire near al-Yarmouk Circle, the scene of an earlier explosion that he and his brother-in-law, Associated Press (AP) photographer Mohamed Ibrahim, had gone to cover. Mohamed Ibrahim suffered shrapnel wounds to the head. AP is investigating the details of the shooting.
A journalist at the scene, whose name was withheld, told the AP that U.S. forces were in the area when the brothers were killed. Mosul's deputy police chief said a U.S. patrol was the target of the earlier explosion.
According to CPJ, 41 journalists have been killed since March 2003. Nineteen media personnel, who work as drivers, translators and fixers, have also been killed, almost all of them Iraqi.
Meanwhile, press freedom groups continue to lobby for the release of three Romanian journalists, a French reporter and Iraqi translator who are being held hostage in Iraq. The Romanian journalists - Sorin Dumitru Miscoci, Marie Jeanne Ion and Eduard Ovidiu Ohanesian - were abducted on 28 March near their hotel in Baghdad. They were last seen being threatened in a video shown on Al-Jazeera on 22 April.
French reporter Florence Aubenas and her translator Hanoun Hanoun, who were last seen in Baghdad on 5 January, have been held hostage by unidentified insurgents in Iraq for more than four months.
Visit:
- RSF:
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=13361
- CPJ:
http://www.cpj.org/news/2005/Iraq25apr05na.html
- Updates on Florence Aubenas and Hussein Hanoun Al-Saadi: http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=461
- Romanian Journalists Threatened by Abductors: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=13359
- RSF Tally of Dead and Missing Journalists: http://www.rsf.org/special_iraq_en.php3
- Conflict in Iraq: http://www.cpj.org/Briefings/2003/gulf03/iraq_conflict_main.html
RSS