Journalists paid a heavy price for informing people about the sufferings in the Syrian conflict, with at least 75 media persons being killed in the war-torn country since March 2011, a report said.

The findings of the study by the Swiss-based Press Emblem Campaign (PEC) were presented at the 28th session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) here on Tuesday, Xinhua reported.

“During the past three years, Syria was the most dangerous place for journalists to work,” the PEC said in a statement.

It noted that a peak in the horror was reached when three journalists — Kenji Goto of Japan, and Steven Sotloff and James Foley of the US — were beheaded by the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group.

The PEC also expressed concern over the fate of Mazen Darwish, the director of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression, who was detained in February 2012 along with his two colleagues, Hani Zitani and Hussein Al Ghurair, and called for their immediate release.

Syria, along with the neighbouring Iraq, has faced the brunt of the IS, which controls large territories in the two countries. The IS had proclaimed a caliphate under its ruler Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the areas it controls in the two countries.

The PEC is a non-governmental organisation with special consultative UN status, and was founded in June 2004 by journalists from several countries with the aim of strengthening the legal protection and safety of journalists in zones of conflict and civil unrest, or on dangerous missions.