'Why don't governments care when journalists die?' asks institute

This year 81 journalists lost their lives around the globe – a drop from 120 in 2016‚ the International Press Institute said.

The institute keeps tally of journalists who are deliberately targeted and those who were killed while on assignment. The Vienna-based group has been issuing such statistics since 1997.

"It’s a relief to see a drop in the number of annual deaths and we hope it marks an end to the overall global trend in recent decades of increasing deaths.

Nevertheless‚ the brutal killings of so many journalists this year in Mexico and so many other countries tragically show how impunity for journalists’ killings begets more killing‚" said executive director of the institute Barbara Trionfi.

She lashed out at governments that failed to bring those who had murdered journalists to justice. Trionfi said the murder of journalists is ''an attack on the fundamental human right to share and receive information and on democracy itself."

Mexico has been singled out as the deadliest country as 13 journalists had perished here. Each of them‚ according to the institute‚ had been "targeted due to work''.

This year there has also been an increase in the number of women who had died. Last year four were killed in the line of duty and this year 10 have died thus far.

While the Caribbean and Latin America are the deadliest regions‚ there were fewer deaths in sub-Saharan Africa and none in South Africa. "Since 2015‚ IPI has also included murders that remain under investigation if the totality of circumstances indicates that the journalist was likely targeted due to his or her work.

That decision is a reflection of the impunity with which so many journalists’ murders increasingly are met‚ due either to an inability or unwillingness by some governments to fully investigate those crimes‚'' the IPI statement read.

•The full list of the slain journalists go to