A journalist was shot lifeless Tuesday night time in western Mexico, an area prosecutor’s workplace mentioned, in part of the nation hit arduous by drug cartel violence.
Mauricio Cruz Solis, a bunch on native radio station La Poderosa Uruapan who additionally printed information on the Minuto x Minuto outlet, was killed within the metropolis of Uruapan within the western state of Michoacán.
One different individual was wounded within the assault, the prosecutor’s workplace mentioned.
The radio station the place Cruz Solis labored mourned his killing in a assertion printed on social media.
“Mauricio was greater than a colleague, he was an unconditional good friend, a supply of inspiration and a tireless voice within the service of our neighborhood,” the station mentioned. “We are going to all the time bear in mind you Mauricio. Thanks for all that you simply shared with us.”
Wracked by violence associated to drug trafficking, Mexico is likely one of the world’s most harmful international locations for journalists, information advocacy teams say.
Reporters With out Borders says greater than 150 newspeople have been killed in Mexico since 1994 — and 2022 was one of many deadliest years ever for journalists in Mexico, with at the very least 15 killed.
Cruz Solis’s homicide is the primary killing of a journalist beneath the federal government of Claudia Sheinbaum, who took workplace on October 1, though there have been different assaults on media this month.
On October 18, gunmen shot on the entrance of the El Debate newspaper’s workplace in Culiacan, the state capital of cartel stronghold Sinaloa, which has been shaken by weeks of gang infighting.
A day later, a supply employee with the outlet was kidnapped by presumed felony teams and there was no information about his whereabouts.
Media staff are frequently focused in Mexico, usually in direct reprisal for his or her work overlaying subjects like corruption and the nation’s notoriously violent drug traffickers.
In August, a Mexican journalist who lined one of many nation’s most harmful crime beats was killed by gunmen, and two of his government-assigned bodyguards have been wounded.
In April, Roberto Figueroa, who lined native politics and gained a social media following by satirical movies, was discovered lifeless inside a automobile in his hometown of Huitzilac in Morelos, a state south of Mexico Metropolis the place drug-fueled violence runs rampant.
All however a handful of the killings and abductions stay unsolved.
“Impunity is the norm in crimes towards the press,” the the Committee to Shield Journalists mentioned in a report on Mexico in March.
