The EBU today condemns in the severest terms the senseless killing of veteran Swedish Radio reporter Nils Horner, who was shot dead in Kabul this morning as he conducted interviews ahead of next month’s presidential election in Afghanistan.

EBU Director General Ingrid Deltenre said: “Everyone in the EBU community is profoundly shaken by this news. We offer our deepest sympathies to Mr Horner’s family, his friends and colleagues at Swedish Radio.”

She added: “Journalists play a vital role in creating and sustaining true democracies, and the whole world is worse off if any one of their number is silenced by intimidation, violence or, worst of all, murder.”

Nils Horner at the EBU Radio News Specialized
Meeting in Turin in 2009 (EBU)

Swedish Radio Director General Cilla Benkö, who is a member of the EBU Executive Board, said in a statement: “Nils was one of our absolute best and most experienced correspondents, and what has happened to him today is terrible. We are now trying to get as many details as we can.”

Nils Horner, 51, had been a Swedish Radio foreign correspondent since 2001. He reported from Afghanistan when the Taliban were forced from power in 2001, from Baghdad when the USA entered in 2003, from Thailand following the Tsunami in 2004, and from Japan after the tsunami and ensuing Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in 2011.

Euroradio Community Chair Graham Ellis, who is the Deputy Director of BBC Radio, said: “It is a terrible day for Swedish Radio and for the wider radio community. It reminds us once again of the risks our journalists  take every day in pursuit of the truth and in bringing our audiences news from hostile environments."

Although the motive for his killing is unknown, Nils was known to be making a programme about women’s rights in Afghanistan.

Among other things, the EBU works according to the principal that the protection of journalists and their work is indispensable to a successful, participative society, and to the credibility of democratic processes.

See the official joint statement by EBU President, Jean-Paul Philippot, and Director General, Ingrid Deltenre.