A Syrian freelance journalist, Majid Dirani, was killed on Friday (19 February) while covering fierce fighting in Damascus, reported one of his employers, the Anadolu Agency.
A colleague said 21-year-old Dirani died while photographing the shelling and aerial bombardment of Daraya, a suburb of Damascus that has been besieged by the Syrian army since 2012.
The Anadolu colleague, Mohammed Misto, said that since Dirani began working for the agency in December he was known as “our eyes in Daraya.”
The Darayya Media Center said Dirani had worked with their collective since the beginning of the Syrian uprising in 2011. The group posted a video on their YouTube channel, which is said to show the explosion in which Dirani was killed.
Dirani, also known as Majid Abu Shafiq, ran a Facebook page of his own in which he documented the bombing of his district.
His killing was condemned by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Its Middle East and North Africa coordinator, Sherif Mansour, said: “Local journalists in Syria who are trying to convey to the world the horrible conditions inside their country continue to pay the ultimate price for their work.”
Since 2011, at least 93 journalists have been killed in Syria.
Sources: Anadolu Agency/Darayya Media Center/CPJ/YouTube
