Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 28, 1994                   TAG: 9412280073
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM                                 LENGTH: Medium

WARS TAKE GRIM TOLL ON JOURNALISTS

At least 115 journalists were killed at work in 1994, more than half of them by machete-wielding gangs in Rwanda and Islamic fundamentalists in Algeria, according to a report to be published today.

The deaths made 1994 the bloodiest year on record for journalists, according to the International Federation of Journalists. Another 15 deaths remained under investigation.

Aiden White, the federation's general secretary, called 1994 ``a year of media slaughter on an unprecedented scale.''

The federation has been keeping track of journalists' deaths since 1988. The worst previous year was 1991, when 84 journalists were killed.

The report says 48 Rwandan journalists died in the orgy of ethnic and political killing in the tiny Central African nation. It said the high number of deaths in Rwanda distorted this year's global figure, which was up from 75 deaths in 1993.

``Journalists were among the first to be targeted'' in Rwanda, said Jean-Paul Marthoz, the report's director. ``They were people who had a high profile in society.''

Most were cut down by the Hutu militias whose rampage through the country from April to July claimed 500,000 lives, mostly among the Tutsi minority and moderate Hutus.

Among the victims listed in the report was Alfonse Rutindura, editor of a newspaper in the southern Rwandan city of Butare, who was hacked to death with his wife, children and parents.

Emmanuel-Damien Rukondo, president of Rwanda's Association of Newspaper Owners, was stripped naked, driven through his neighborhood on the back of a truck, then cut to pieces, the report said.

In Algeria, the federation said, 19 journalists were slain. Most were believed murdered by Islamic militants who have targeted media critical of their four-year insurgency against the government.

Seven journalists were killed in Bosnia in 1994, down from 13 in 1993. They included a three-man Italian TV crew blown up in a mortar attack in January and two American journalists killed when their car ran over a land mine in May.

Foreign correspondents also were deliberately targeted or caught in the cross-fire in Afghanistan, Somalia, the former Soviet Union and South Africa.

The latest to die was American photographer Cynthia Elbaum, killed Thursday by a bomb blast in Chechnya.

Keywords:
FATALITY