Last week, Ahmed Omed Khpulwak, a 25-year old stringer for the BBC, was killed in a suicide bomb attack in southern Afghanistan. Khpulwak’s death, as the many that came before it, is a tragedy and a reminder of the violence and danger journalists covering Afghanistan routinely face. There have been 266 reported incidents of violence against journalists covering the country—and Khpulwak was the 22nd journalist to have died there—since the war began in 2001, according to Nai, an Afghan media advocacy and education organization.
This reality is presented in bleak and striking visual form through a new data-mapping project developed by Nai, in cooperation with Internews, an international media development organization, and supported by USAID. Data from the 266 reported incidents has been broken down and built into a set of interactive maps layered with context, including number of media organizations and active journalists in each province.
The site offers a grim picture of the toll the war in Afghanistan has taken on the media, but more importantly, it is a smart and essential resource, particularly for journalists and news organizations in Afghanistan. The original data can be downloaded and the maps are embeddable.
Have a look:
Erika Fry is a former assistant editor at CJR.