Daily Times

The deaths of Faramarz and Ahmadi on September 5 took the number of journalists and media workers killed in Afghanistan this year to 14, making the country the deadliest in the world for the media.

Among the dead were 13 journalists — the highest number killed in Afghanistan in a single year since the start of the war.

The losses have devastated the tight-knit community that faces the real prospect of tragedy every time they go to work.

“When we leave our homes we don’t know whether we will go back alive,” said 1TV reporter Hamid Haidary, who keeps a photo shrine of fallen journalists on a shelf above his desk.

As security in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate, the fear and anxiety is ever-present, he added.

“It is not just about the blast site, it is going to a province, it is coming to the office or being in the office — they all are attached to risks and it is difficult sometimes to minimise all of them to zero.”

Sixty journalists and media workers have been killed in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion in 2001 that toppled the Taliban regime and enabled independent media to blossom in its wake — an average of around three a year, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

Afghan media support group NAI gave an even higher toll of 95.

But the departure of NATO combat troops at the end of 2014 marked a turning point, RSF figures show: 39 journalists and media workers — over half of the total — have been killed since then as a resurgent Taliban and the newly-emerged Islamic State group terrorise the country.

Media outlets have already scaled back coverage on the battlefield. But until this year, suicide attacks in urban centres remained a staple for newsrooms.

A double bomb attack in the Afghan capital on April 30 changed that.

Nine journalists, including Agence France-Presse chief photographer Shah Marai, were killed in the twin blasts — the most lethal attack on the media since the fall of the Taliban.

Less than three months later AFP driver Mohammad Akhtar was killed in another suicide attack on his way to work, followed in September by Faramarz and Ahmadi.

The deaths are forcing outlets to ask themselves hard questions about how they work, especially as the country braces for more violence ahead of parliamentary elections in October.