"I condemn the killing of Khaled Alkhateb… I call on all to respect the Geneva Conventions, which recognizes the targeting of journalists in conflict situations as a war crime…. I urge media organizations, as well as the actors in the conflict and reporters themselves to take every possible measure to secure safe working conditions on the ground," Bokova said in a statement released by UNESCO.
On July 30, RT reported about the death of Alkhateb near the town of As Sukhnah in Homs.
On Tuesday, RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan said RT would establish an annual international award for reporters to honor the memory of Alkhateb.
According to Alkhateb's social media accounts, he was born in 1992 and began working for the RT Arabic in June this year. He worked at the Arabic website of the Sputnik news agency for two years, then switched to the Syrian state television channel Al-Ekhbariya before taking the job with RT.
