BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) – Police in Colombia are investigating the murders of two journalists who were shot to death while returning…
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) – Police in Colombia are investigating the murders of two journalists who were shot to death on their way home from a county fair.
Leyner Montero and Dilia Contreras were driving before dawn Sunday when men on motorcycles fired at their vehicle as they approached the town of Fundacion in northern Colombia, according to police.
Authorities said they are not yet sure if the attack was related to their journalistic work. Montero ran a community radio station in Fundacion that broadcast local news and cultural events, while Contreras ran a local news website and had recently been hired as press officer for Fundacion’s municipal government. Police said Montero was involved in a fight at the county fair the two reporters attended over the weekend.
Colombia is the second deadliest country for journalists in Latin America after Mexico. According to the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders, nine journalists have been killed in Colombia because of their work since 2016, when the country’s government signed a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia that ended five decades of war. .
In the 1990s and early 2000s, murders of journalists in Colombia were twice as high, and attacks on the media included a car bombing of the headquarters of a national newspaper.
Juan Pappier, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the killing of Contreras and Montero was “one of the worst attacks” on Colombian journalists in recent years.
“It’s a bitter reminder that security and defense strategies need to be improved,” Pappier said.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who took office earlier this month, called for an investigation.
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