Press group warns of risks for journalists working in liberated areas of Ukraine

By Peter Kenny

GENEVA (AA) - The Geneva-based international organization Press Emblem Campaign (PEC) on Tuesday warned foreign journalists in Ukraine working in areas recently liberated from Russian forces to be careful as nine journalists have died since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war on Feb. 24.

The UN High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR) said it recorded 1,480 civilian fatalities, including 61 children, in the country, with 2,195 injured, but added that the real toll is much higher.

Most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems and missile, and airstrikes.

"OHCHR believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed," said the rights office.

The Human Rights Office also noted the report of the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine, according to which 165 children had been killed and 266 injured.

PEC said that in 40 days after Russia launched the war on Ukraine, nine local and international journalists were killed, while dozens wounded.

"The occupiers kidnapped two journalists. One journalism teacher and one documentary filmmaker also were killed," it added.

"Press Emblem Campaign condemns the killing of Ukrainian photojournalist, documentary photographer Maks Levin, aged 40, found dead near the village of Huta Mezhyhirska in the Kyiv region on Friday," it noted.

According to the preliminary information released by the press service of the Ukraine Prosecutor General's Office, unarmed Levin was killed by the Russian Armed Forces.

"Foreign journalists should be careful while working in areas that have recently been liberated from Russian occupiers," the PEC also said.

"All the forests and roadsides there are mined; the sappers and deminers must first do their job."

The PEC added that it is unsafe to work in the east of Ukraine in the Lugansk and Donetsk regions.

It also reported that on April 3, the Security Service of Ukraine expelled Dutch journalist Robert Dulmers.

He was deprived of his accreditation and expelled for violating requirements for publishing photos and videos of a rocket attack on Odessa by posting on the shelling on his Twitter account immediately after the missile strikes.

Authorities said his publications contained information making it possible to identify the exact location of the missile strikes.