In separate statements, the agency noted that  Campos Rosa, owner and writer for the local O Grito newspaper, was murdered on 17 August in Santa Luzia municipality in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state.

“I call on the authorities to investigate this crime and bring its perpetrators to justice. Impunity must not be allowed to benefit those who use violence to prevent the media from keeping us informed,” the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Irina Bokova, said in one of the statements.

In the other statement - on the death of  Ghani, a staff member of Iraqi satellite channel Al-Ahad TV, killed by mortar fire while his team was reporting from Jaziret al-Khalideya in Iraq's Anbar province on 20 August -  Bokova underlined the need to ensure protection of the media and called on “all concerned to respect their civilian status in times of war, in keeping with the Geneva Conventions.”

The UNESCO Director-General regularly issues statements on the killing of media workers in line with Resolution 29 adopted by UNESCO Member States in 1997, entitled “Condemnation of Violence against Journalists.”