One more Indian journalist dies of Covid-19, global tally at 867
|
Geneva/Guwahati / 12 March 2021: One more senior journalist based in
Madhya Pradesh in central India died of Covid-19 to increase the
tally of media corona casualty up to 57 in the south Asian country,
where the global count crosses 865 journalists. Kamal Dixit, who also
taught journalism in Makhanlal Chaturvedi University succumbed to
novel corona virus aggravated ailments on Wednesday in a Bhopal
hospital.
“So far, at least 867 journalists died of Covid-19 in 69 countries,
where Brazil with 109 media corona casualties has lately replaced Peru
(108) to top the list of most affected countries,” said Blaise Lempen,
secretary-general of Press Emblem Campaign (https://pressemblem.ch/),
a Switzerland based nonprofit organization focusing on press freedom
and safety.
Other nations with high media casualties include Mexico (88), Italy
(48), Bangladesh (44), USA (44), Ecuador (42), Colombia (37), United
Kingdom (28), Pakistan (23), Turkey (21), Panama (16), Bolivia,
Russia, Ukraine (14 each), Spain (13), etc said a statement of PEC,
which started counting the corona deaths since March 2020 as a tribute
to journalists and condolences to families and colleagues of the
deceased around the world.
“The safety of media workers is particularly at risk in the Covid-19
pandemic as they have to continue providing information on the ground.
A number of them died for lack of adequate protective measures when
doing their job. The PEC requests early vaccinations for journalists
on the frontlines,” added Lempen, who himself a senior journalist
based in Geneva.
Mourning the demise of journalists in India, PEC’s country
representative Nava Thakuria urged the media fraternity to maintain
precautionary measures as the pandemic is yet to be over. He mentioned
about the speculation that more journalists would be dying of corona
infection related ailments in the coming weeks as the projected corona
death may reach globally at 3000 per day by the end of March.
|
|
|
