Russia has been ranked 11th on a new index, highlighting countries where journalists are slain and their killers go free.

It is the only European country on the 2018 Global Impunity Index from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

The list has put Somalia at the top for the fourth year in a row.

While two countries rejoin the list - including Afghanistan, where a suicide attacker targeted a group of journalists in Kabul killing nine.

Colombia is eighth, after a breakaway faction of a guerrilla group with alleged ties to drug trafficking kidnapped an Ecuadoran news crew near the border and murdered them in Colombian territory.

Both nations had fallen off the index in recent years as violent conflict receded.

Source: CPJ

In the past decade, at least 324 journalists have been murdered worldwide - and in 85% of these cases no perpetrators have been convicted.

The CPJ says: "It is an emboldening message to those who seek to censor and control the media through violence.

"More than three quarters (82%) of these cases took place in the 14 countries that CPJ included on the index this year.

"All 14 countries have featured on the index multiple times since CPJ began to compile it in 2008, and half have appeared every year."

Source: CPJ

The majority of victims are local journalists.

The list includes states where instability caused by conflict and violence by armed groups has fueled impunity - as well as those where journalists covering corruption, crime, politics, business, and human rights have been targeted.

The Impunity Index calculates the number of unsolved murders over a 10-year period as a percentage of each country's population.

Countries with five or more unsolved cases for the period are included.

The CPJ also noted which states participated in UNESCO's impunity accountability mechanism.

This requests information on the status of investigations into killed journalists.