Iraqi cameraman killed in suicide bombing

New York, June 23, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists mourns the death of cameraman Alwan al-Ghorabi, who died in the southern city of Diwaniyya when a car bomb exploded in the city center on Tuesday. 

Alwan, a cameraman for the Afaq satellite channel, owned by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawa Party, was with numerous other journalists at the southern entrance of a Diwaniyya government building when the bomb went off, local news reports said. The cameraman, who worked at Afaq for two years, is survived by a wife and four children, according to news reports.

“We send our deep condolences to the family and colleagues of Alwan al-Ghorabi,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Mohamed Abdel Dayem. “This senseless death is a reminder of how dangerous Iraq continues to be for journalists.” 

Alwan is the fourth journalist to be killed in Iraq in 2011. A total of 148 other journalists have been killed in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003, making it the world’s deadliest country for the press in that period, CPJ research shows.