MEXICO CITY (AP) — Prosecutors in southern Mexico said reporter Gustavo Sánchez Cabrera was shot to death Thursday, and another journalist was killed just west of Mexico City, bringing to three the number killed so far this year in the country. Two other reporters have disappeared.
The prosecutor’s office in the southern state of Oaxaca said Sánchez Cabrera was riding a motorcycle with another person on a rural road when gunmen opened fire on them.
There was no immediate information on the condition of the other person. The attack occurred in Oaxaca’s isthmus region.
A person with knowledge of the case who was not authorized to be quoted by name said Sánchez Cabrera had been wounded in a shooting attack outside his home last year, and had asked for protection under a federal program that sometimes provides cameras or police guards for journalists who heave been attacked or threatened.
Sánchez Cabrera had technically been accepted into the program but had not yet received any protection, according to that person.
Jan-Albert Hootsen, the Mexico representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said Sánchez Cabrera’s case showed “nothing has changed” for reporters in Mexico despite government promises to prevent such killings.
Press groups say nine journalists were killed in Mexico in 2020, making it the most dangerous country for reporters outside of war zones.
“The government was clearly remiss in its responsibilities,” Hootsen said.
Reporters Without Borders demanded “a thorough investigation into the threats and attacks that he had reported earlier related to his work as a journalist,” adding “we regret that protection mechanisms … did not reach him in time.”
Also Thursday, the prosecutors office in Mexico State, which borders Mexico City, said Enrique Garcia was killed Wednesday night in the township of Metepec, west of the capital.
Garcia worked as a journalist, but on the night he was killed it appeared he was working as a driver for a ride-hailing app.
The office said he may have been killed in a robbery.
At least two journalists have disappeared this year in the violence-wracked northern border state of Sonora, and in May, online journalist Benjamín Morales Hernández was abducted and killed in Sonora. Morales Hernández ran an community news site called Noticias Xonoidag.
Copyright © 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
