Threat overhead: UNESCO reveals death toll for journalists killed by drones
For journalists covering war, danger comes from above. UNESCO has confirmed that unmanned aerial vehicles killed two in five reporters across six war zones, according to its latest report.
UNESCO released the findings on 2 November in its 2026 Director-General’s Report on the Safety of Journalists and the Danger of Impunity. The agency recorded 189 killings worldwide over 2024 and 2025, up 20% from the previous two-year reporting period.
127 of them died in conflict zones, and 15 journalists were killed while wearing press vests or travelling in vehicles clearly marked PRESS.
«Journalists are increasingly paying with their lives for reporting from the frontlines of war,» UNESCO Director-General Khaled El-Enany said, as cited by UN News.
Recent warzone casualties among journalists
In June 2025, an Israeli drone struck the courtyard of Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, killing Palestine Today TV editor Suleiman Hajjaj and camera operator Ismail Baddah, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Al-Araby TV’s cameraman Ahmad Qalaja died of his injuries the following day.
Read more: Israeli strike on Gaza hospital kills 20, including five journalists
In October, a Russian drone reportedly hit a vehicle carrying reporter Olena Hramova and camera operator Yevhen Karmazin, who worked for Ukraine’s state-funded broadcaster Freedom.
🕯️ On Thursday, October 23, Russian Lancet drone strike in Kramatorsk killed military correspondent of the FreeDom TV channel Alona Hramova (Hubanova) and cameraman Yevhen Karmazin. The state enterprise «Multimedia Broadcasting Platform of Ukraine» confirmed the information to Detector Media. 🏥 Special correspondent Oleksandr Kolychev was also hospitalized with injuries. At the moment of the strike, the journalists were in a car at a gas station. The head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, Vadym Filashkin, also confirmed the journalists’ deaths on his Telegram channel. 🗣️ «From the first days of #Russia’s full-scale invasion, they covered the situation in the region, told the truth about the enemy’s crimes, the evacuation of civilians, and the stories of our defenders. They worked in the hottest spots of Donetsk region — always among the first to arrive. It’s hard to believe this could have happened to them… This is a painful loss for the region and for all of us. Bright, kind, fair, and honest — Olena and Yevhen will forever remain in our memory just like that,» Filashkin wrote. Detector Media expresses its sincere condolences to the families, friends, and colleagues of Olena Hubanova and Yevhen Karmazin. #RussiaIsATerroristState #RussianUkrainianWar #StopRussia
— Detector Media (@DetectorMediaEn) October 23, 2025
Earlier that year, on 4 January, another drone struck a civilian vehicle carrying Alexander Martemyanov, a freelance correspondent for Russia’s Izvestia newspaper, on the Donetsk–Horlivka highway in Russian-controlled eastern Ukraine.
The sidestory: Ukraine launches largest drone attack on Moscow since start of war
Martemyanov succumbed to his injuries, and four other media workers were reportedly injured. The International and European Federations of Journalists called for an independent investigation into the incident, while Izvestia attributed the strike to Ukrainian forces.
- CPJ’s separate global tally recorded 39 confirmed or suspected drone-related press deaths in 2025, up from two in 2023.
- UNESCO says 86% of the journalist killings it has tracked since 2006 remain unresolved in court or have been abandoned.
