No region illustrates the crisis more starkly than the Middle East and North Africa. Of the 19 countries and territories assessed there, 18 countries fall into the worst two categories. The Gaza Strip and the West Bank have been designated the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. Since the outbreak of the conflict in October 2023, more than 220 Palestinian journalists have been killed by the Israeli army, of whom at least 70 were slain while actively engaged in their work.

RSF describes the Israeli army as the single largest institutional killer of journalists in the world. The figure is not merely a statistic. It represents cameramen cut down mid-broadcast, correspondents killed in targeted strikes, photographers who never filed their final pictures.

Sudan, ranked 161st in the index, presents a parallel catastrophe. Since fighting erupted in 2023, the Sudanese Journalists Syndicate has documented the deaths of 32 journalists, 556 separate violations against media workers, and the forced closure of countless newspapers and radio stations. In recognition of its members’ courage under fire, the Syndicate was awarded the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. Mohamed Zakaria, a Sudanese photojournalist, and filmmaker who has made it his mission to document the humanitarian catastrophe in his country’s ongoing civil war, was among those whose work anchored this year’s commemorations. The Syndicate’s chair, Abdelmoniem Abuedries Ali, received the prize on behalf of colleagues who continued to work and to file, even as the infrastructure of Sudanese journalism collapsed around them.

Eastern Europe is the other region that RSF singles out as consistently among the most dangerous for the press, a distinction it has held for 25 years running. Russia, ranked 172nd, has long deployed anti-terrorism and anti-extremism statutes as instruments of media suppression. As of April 2026, 48 journalists were behind bars in the country.

Eritrea ranks last among all 180 countries assessed, a position it has held for three consecutive years. Among those imprisoned there is Dawit Isaak, a journalist who has now spent 25 years in detention without trial, a record of sustained official cruelty that has attracted no meaningful international consequences.