Mexico: Number of Killed Journalists Climbs to 4 So Far in 2019

Mexican journalist and radio broadcaster Santiago Barroso was attacked Friday night at his home, in San Luis Rio Colorado City, where he sustained three bullet wounds, as reported by Sonorared, the Sonora Journalist Network.

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According to preliminary non-oficial information from the Prosecutor's Office of Sonora, Barroso sustained three wounds by a firearm, two of them were in his abdomen. After being attacked, however, the journalist managed to make a phone call, which allowed him to be transferred by a Red Cross ambulance to a hospital. Howver, doctors could not save him and he passed away shortly after arriving at the hospital.

Barroso's murder becomes the forth journalist to be killed in Mexico so far in 2019, along with Reynaldo Lopez, Jose Murua and Jesus Ramos as reported by Animal Politico, a local media outlet.

"Journalist Santiago Barroso is murdered in the State of Sonora."

Reporters Without Borders (RSF),  an international NGO advocating freedom of information, has registered 102 Mexican journalists  killed and 14 disappeared between 2006 and 2018, a period which encompasses the governments of Felipe Calderon (2006-2012) and Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018).

"The big problem in the Mexican murders and crimes against journalists is the passivity of the authorities to investigate and resolve the cases," Christophe Deloire, the RSF Secretary-general, said and specified that 99 percent the these cases are still unpunished.

This data makes Mexico the most dangerous Latin American country to practice journalism. Worldwide, it ranks 147 out of 180 in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index.