Reporters Without Borders said Tuesday that 66 journalists were killed in the past year, noting that the attacks against reporters have grown more barbaric and kidnappings have soared.

Reporters Without Borders said Tuesday that 66 journalists were killed in the past year, noting that the attacks against reporters have grown more barbaric and kidnappings have soared.

In their annual report which was released on Tuesday, Reporters Without Borders  said: “Rarely have reporters been murdered with such a barbaric sense of propaganda, shocking the entire world.”

There was a slight drop in the number of murdered journalists -- down from 71 last year -- thanks largely to fewer deaths in countries "at peace". A total of 720 reporters have been killed since 2005.

But kidnappings soared to 119 -- up 37 percent on last year -- thanks to the tactics of separatists in eastern Ukraine and militants operating in the Middle East and North Africa.

Of those kidnapped, 33 were in Ukraine, 29 in Libya and 27 in Syria. Forty are still being held.

"Local journalists pay the highest price, representing 90 percent of those abducted," the report emphasized.

"Of the 22 journalists currently being held by armed groups in Syria, 16 are Syrians. All of the eight journalists currently held hostage in Iraq are Iraqis."

Reporters Without Borders highlighted several cases of journalists punished by their governments, including that of Raef Badawi, a Saudi citizen-journalist who won the charity's Press Freedom Prize this year and was sentenced in September to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for "insulting Islam" with his views on the Liberal Saudi Network.

It also highlighted the case of Khadija Ismailova in Azerbaijan -- "now Europe's biggest prison for media personnel". Her work on government corruption has made her a target of smear campaigns, blackmail and spurious legal charges.