Syria: RSF and SCM condemn the murders of two press correspondents

Anas Alkharboutli, photojournalist for the German news agency DPA, was killed in a bombardment near Hama on 4 December, and Mustafa al-Kurdi, correspondent for the Turkish media TRT and the news website Focus Aleppo, was shot dead by soldiers of the Syrian Army on 30 November in Aleppo, a city now under the control of the opposition armed forces. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) are calling for an independent investigation into the murders of these two journalists. Targeting media workers is a war crime.

On the morning of 4 December, an air strike killed photojournalist and correspondent for the German news agency DPA Anas Alkharboutli. The 32-year-old media professional, who won the Young Reporter Trophy at the 2020 Bayeux Calvados-Normandy Award for war correspondents, was covering clashes between opposition groups and the Syrian army in Morek, a town located some twenty kilometres north of Hama, in central Syria. Anas Alkharboutli has “documented Syria’s civil war in a unique visual language”, said DPA in a press release.

Four days earlier, on 30 November, Mustafa al-Kurdi, correspondent for the Turkish public media TRT and employee of the local news website Focus Aleppo, was shot dead. According to RSF’s information, Syrian army soldiers opened fire on a car carrying the reporter at the entrance to the Achrafieh district of Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city, located in the north of the country.

RSF and SCM are calling for independent investigations to identify and bring to justice the perpetrators of these two murders. While the opposition armed groups seized Aleppo on 29 November, the region’s civilian population has been indiscriminately targeted by the military response of Bashar al-Assad’s regime’s forces.

“The heinous murders of Anas Alkharboutli in an air strike and of Mustafa al-Kurdi, by Bashar al-Assad’s army, and in the early days of the fighting between opposition groups and the regime’s forces, give us cause to fear further crimes and violations against journalists during this conflict, which looks set to last. Independent investigations must be launched as soon as possible to determine those responsible for these crimes and bring them to justice. If these two reporters were identified and targeted as journalists, their murders would constitute a war crime, possibly one more on the account of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship responsible for the deaths of over 100 journalists since the start of the 2011 revolution and the war that followed.”

Jonathan Dagher
Head of RSF’s Middle East desk

“A free press is the lifeblood of democracy, and turning a blind eye to the targeting of journalists equates to tacit complicity and acceptance of violence. Without accountability, the silence of justice amplifies the roar of brutality. No party to any conflict, regardless of its objectives, can use hostilities as a shield to evade responsibility for targeting journalists, neglecting their protection, or showing leniency toward perpetrators. The international community’s persistent failure to hold those accountable for targeting journalists in Syria has set a dangerous precedent, emboldening others to follow suit—from Ukraine to Palestine.”

Yara Bader
SCM’s Programs Manager

Syria sits at the second-lowest ranks (179 out of 180) in RSF’s 2024 World Press Freedom Index.