Last Sunday, a young Canadian freelance photographer was killed in Aleppo while covering the civil war in Syria. Ali Mustafa was one of the few journalists in the country as the time.
Mustafa and seven others were killed after regime aircraft dropped barrel bombs in the Hadariyeh area of Aleppo, which is apparently under opposition-control, according to the Associated Press.
Mustafa’s family reportedly learned of his death through social media after his Facebook page lit up with remembrances. His family was apparently not aware that he was in Syria according to Time Magazine. He wrote on his Twitter page on February 14 that he was in Syria.
Three days earlier, Mustafa’s last post on his Facebook and Twitter accounts showcased the type of work he did for The Guardian, The Times of London and other major publications.
More work from #Syria up in @guardian, @thetimes, and elsewhere: http://t.co/f7D9XhnjnX / http://t.co/f7Q5NXXYwh / http://t.co/VQwUa80eMa
— Ali Mustafa (@_fbtm) March 6, 2014
On Twitter, many fellow journalists and political activists in the region lamented his death and praised the quality of his work:
Ali Mustafa, the Canadian killed in Syria, wanted to show the human side of war. Here are some of his photos https://t.co/CngKXgZjMm
— RJAA (@RyeJournAlumni) March 9, 2014
This is one of the first tweets to announce his death, by Borzou Daragahi the MENA correspondent for the FInancial Times.
Freelance Canada photog Ali Mustafa (@_fbtm) killed in #Syria regime barrel bombing in Aleppo today. One of last pics pic.twitter.com/BDa4NFzdrK
— Borzou Daragahi (@borzou) March 9, 2014
The accidental death of journalists occurs often in conflict areas but Mustafa’s death last Sunday sheds light on the precarious working conditions of freelancers in countries such as Syria, which are literally closed off to international media. In these conflict zones, freelancers are required to take greater risks to report the situation on the ground because traditional news outlets refuse to send their staff and offer them a certain degree of protection.
So sad. All those freelancers out there in war zones. @jsource: Canadian photojournalist Ali Mustafa killed in Syria http://t.co/thKIJegsYt
— Selena Ross (@seleross) March 11, 2014
This Post on Facebook by renowned Arab commentator Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi, refers to Mustafa’s flatmate in Cairo, who gives a picture of the financial and emotional difficulties the journalist was going through at the time.
His death also sparked outrage from Syrian Anti-Asaad and leftists groups, which strongly attributed full responsibility to government forces for the attack. The Syria Freedom Forever blog, which describes itself as “dedicated to the struggle of the Syrian people in their uprising to overthrow the Assad authoritarian regime”, posted the following eulogy in honour of Mustafa and the attacks’ victims. The author of this post is unclear.
In response, the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) issued an open letter saying the organization was “deeply troubled” by Mustafa’s death, saying it served as a reminder that “Syria is the deadliest country for the press, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.”
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 63 journalists have been killed in Syria since March 2011 and another 37 are being held by rebel groups or are missing.
Great job of writing a story with social media. You do a wonderful job of providing context and connecting the different posts and bits of media into a cohesive narrative. The conflict in Syria is also ripe for reporting via social media, even though Ali Mustafa was a professional, he was one of a few in a highly dangerous place, where a lot of the stories we get from Syria are produced by activists—particularly early on in the conflict. What a terrible loss.