Mexico City.- A Mexican journalist covering one of the country’s most dangerous crime stories was killed by gunmen on Sunday, and two of his government-assigned bodyguards were wounded, authorities said.
His death was confirmed by a news website run by reporter Alejandro Martinez. The site covered community and crime news in Celaya, the most dangerous city for police officers in Mexico.
The Celaya police department said Martinez was shot to death by attackers traveling in another vehicle. It also said the two bodyguards were receiving medical attention for their injuries, but did not provide details on their condition.
The journalist had been assigned police protection after he reported receiving threats. Prosecutors in the state of Guanajuato in the north-central region of the country said they were investigating the killing.
Martínez covered a fatal road accident on a dangerous stretch of highway just hours before he was attacked. His injured bodyguards took him to a hospital, where he died.
Guanajuato has the highest number of homicides of any of Mexico’s 32 states, largely due to a years-long turf war between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the local Santa Rosa de Lima cartel. A total of 18 Celaya police officers have been shot dead so far this year in the city of half a million people. Most of those killings are suspected to have been carried out by drug traffickers.
Media workers are often targeted in Mexico, often in direct retaliation for their work covering issues such as corruption and the country’s notoriously violent drug traffickers.
In April, Roberto Figueroa, who covered local politics and had a following on social media for the satirical videos he posted, was found dead inside a car in his hometown of Huitzilac, Morelos, a state south of Mexico City where drug violence is rampant.
Since 2000, a total of 141 Mexican journalists and other media workers have been killed, at least 61 of them in apparent retaliation for their work, says the Committee to Protect Journalists. All but a handful of the killings and kidnappings remain unsolved.
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