Al-Jazeera reporter killed by sniper

 JournalismPakistan.com |  Published: 19 January 2013

A second journalist has been killed in Syria in recent days, with Al-Jazeera's Mohamed al-Mesalma shot while covering ongoing clashes in Daraa. Local opposition media released footage of the incident, capturing the moment he was hit.

Summary

NEW YORK: An Al-Jazeera reporter was killed by a sniper in the city of Daraa Friday (January 18), the second journalist fatality in Syria in as many days.

According to Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Mohamed al-Mesalma, who was also known as Mohamed al-Hourani, was shot while reporting on fighting in the village of Basri Al-Hariri in Daraa.

Al-Mesalma had been based in Daraa for about a year, where he reported for Al-Jazeera on the ongoing military clashes between the Syrian army and opposition forces.

Local opposition group AEN Network, and local media affiliated with the Syrian opposition, posted a video of the attack. The video shows al-Mesalma running across a street with members of an Al-Jazeera crew, and then being shot. The journalist was holding his Al-Jazeera TV microphone at the time of his death. News reports did not immediately identify whether the sniper fire came from government or anti-government forces.

Al-Mesalma was killed shortly after a sniper targeted French military correspondent Yves Debay in Aleppo.

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