The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) warned against the rise of violence targeting media and journalists on the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, which falls on Saturday.

Axar.az reports citing Xinhua.

UNESCO said in the latest report, titled "Intensified Attack, New Defenses," that the number of killings of journalists jumped by 18 percent in the past five-year period (2014-2018), compared with the previous five-year period (2009-2013).

The report revealed that more than half of journalist fatalities took place in non-conflict zones in the past two years (2017-2018).

"This trend exemplifies the changing nature of killings of journalists, who are often targeted because of their reporting on politics, crime and corruption," it said.

According to the report, almost 90 percent of cases of killings of journalists between 2006 and 2018 were unresolved worldwide.

"UNESCO holds to account all those who put journalists at risk, all those who kill journalists, and all those who do nothing to stop this violence. The end of a journalist's life should never be the end of the quest for truth," UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said.

The UN General Assembly proclaimed Nov. 2 as the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists in a resolution adopted in 2013. The date was chosen in commemoration of the assassination of two French journalists in Mali in November that year.