Second journalist murdered in Mexico this year

Gunmen killed a journalist in southern Mexico on Thursday,June 17th, prosecutors said — the second such confirmed murder this year in one of the world’s deadliest countries for reporters.

Gustavo Sanchez, the editor of a website covering news about the police, was shot dead by unknown attackers while riding a motorcycle in Oaxaca, the state prosecutor’s office said.

It condemned the attack and said that it had sent a team to the scene “to find those responsible and quickly solve this crime.”

Sanchez is the second journalist killed because of his work so far this year in Mexico, media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said.

The body of another journalist, Enrique Garcia, was found Thursday in the central State of Mexico, although RSF said it was not immediately clear if his death was linked to his work.

Sanchez had already survived an attack in July 2020.

“He had reported the attacks to the Oaxaca state prosecutor’s office, which never investigated the incidents,” RSF representative Blabina Flores said.

The group regularly ranks Mexico alongside war-torn Syria and Afghanistan as the world’s most dangerous countries for news media. 

More than 100 reporters have been murdered since 2000 in Mexico, where investigating political corruption or powerful drug cartels can have deadly repercussions.

Only a fraction of those crimes have resulted in convictions.