Mexico is considered one of the deadliest countries for reporters as 11 journalists have been killed already this year. Three of those victims have been murdered in the past week, according to government officials.
The Veracruz prosecutor’s office has stated they have launched an investigation into the two most recent killings. El Veraz news website director Yessenia Mollinedo Falconi and reporter Sheila Johana García Olivera were slain in the municipality of Cosoleacaque on May 9, 2022.
Authorities are currently looking into the victims’ journalistic activities and other lines of investigation to determine the motive behind the homicides.
Veracruz governor Cuitláhuac García tweeted, “We will find the perpetrators of this crime, there will be justice and there will be no impunity as we have said and done in other cases.”
The two were gunned down in “the parking lot of a convenience store in Cosoleacaque,” according to The Committee to Protect Journalists. They have requested an immediate investigation into the incident.
A journalist was found dead on May 5 (Cinco de Mayo) in Sinaloa, Mexico. The state’s prosecutor Sara Quiñonez posted on Twitter: “Unfortunately, it’s confirmed that the body found on a road on El Ranchito highway is the journalist Luis Enrique Ramírez Ramos.” The post continued on saying, “Our sincere condolences to his family and our commitment to work on clarifying this fact.”
Luis Enrique Ramírez Ramos was a journalist and founder of the news outlet, Fuentes Fidedignas. News reports stated he had been kidnapped near his home. Later authorities located his body on a dirt road near a junkyard in the state capital, Culiacan.
He was found wrapped in black plastic. His cause of death was from multiple blows to his head. Investigators have not linked his professional activities to his death at this time.
The alarming rate of these killings has made Mexico one of the deadliest countries for journalists to operate in outside of war zones this year.
Last year nine journalists were killed in Mexico, causing it to be labeled as the country’s deadliest year for journalists.
These deaths have come on the heels of press freedom activists, world leaders, abroad, and Mexico’s journalists who shed light on the issue.
In February, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador criticized U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s cry for greater protection for Mexican reporters.
In the past thirty years, only three journalists’ murders have resulted in convictions, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. It notes that since the late 1990s, “153 journalists have been murdered and another 29 have ‘disappeared.'”
Mexico has long been one of the most dangerous countries for reporters globally, however, victims rarely see justice.
Written by Sheena Robertson
Sources:
Axios: 11 journalists killed in Mexico so far this year; by Sara Fischer
CBS News: Journalists Yessenia Mollinedo and Sheila Garcia shot dead in Mexico, becoming 10th and 11th reporters killed in country this year
CNN: Three journalists killed in Mexico in past week; by Jorge Engels and Karol Suarez
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