diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index e09e67d8ae4..bf201cfc5ea 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -227,6 +227,12 @@ Build
 - Issue #15819: Make sure we can build Python out-of-tree from a read-only
   source directory.  (Somewhat related to issue #9860.)
 
+Tools/Demos
+-----------
+
+- Issue #13301: use ast.literal_eval() instead of eval() in Tools/i18n/msgfmt.py
+  Patch by Serhiy Storchaka.
+
 Documentation
 -------------
 
diff --git a/Tools/i18n/msgfmt.py b/Tools/i18n/msgfmt.py
index a5544424e24..7b3a81ff93a 100755
--- a/Tools/i18n/msgfmt.py
+++ b/Tools/i18n/msgfmt.py
@@ -24,8 +24,9 @@ Options:
         Display version information and exit.
 """
 
-import sys
 import os
+import sys
+import ast
 import getopt
 import struct
 import array
@@ -180,8 +181,7 @@ def make(filename, outfile):
         l = l.strip()
         if not l:
             continue
-        # XXX: Does this always follow Python escape semantics?
-        l = eval(l)
+        l = ast.literal_eval(l)
         if section == ID:
             msgid += l.encode(encoding)
         elif section == STR: