Journalist dies in crash soon after writing of dangers

A journalist on Syria’s government daily Tishrin died in an accident on a road in the north of the country, only hours after highlighting the dangers of the highway in an article, his paper said Thursday.

Said Matar, 47, had faxed from Raqqa, 550 kilometres north of Damascus, a story about the perils of the road to Aleppo, before setting out along it to return to the capital, Tishrin said. He had criticised the delays in widening the road, where 200 people were killed last year alone.

Tishrin gave no details of the accident, in which Matar’s wife and children were also seriously hurt, but in an editorial it slammed the authorities concerned. “Officials go around in powerful cars, whose curtains prevent them seeing how narrow this road is,” it said. “They treat victims of road accidents simply as statistics.” —AFP

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