(CNN) — A journalist was murdered this Sunday in the border city of Tijuana, in northern Mexico, marking the third murder of a journalist in Mexico in two weeks.
Lourdes Maldonado López was shot to death inside a car in the Santa Fe neighborhood of Tijuana, according to a statement from the Baja California Attorney General’s Office on Sunday night, citing official documents in her possession. The statement says local police first received a report on Sunday at 7 p.m. local time and found her dead on arrival.
An investigation is underway, according to the statement.
The journalist Lourdes Maldonado, during a press conference with the president of Mexico on March 26, 2019. (Credit: Presidency of Mexico)
The journalist told AMLO in 2019 that she feared for her life
In 2019, Maldonado told the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, at his daily press conference, who feared for his life and asked for his “support, help and labor justice.”
Maldonado’s murder follows that of photojournalist Alfonso Margarito Martínez Esquivel on January 17 in Tijuana, and José Luis Gamboa on January 10 in the state of Veracruz.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said in a tweet that it is “shocked” by the killing and called on authorities to “thoroughly and transparently investigate the attack.”
The non-profit organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has reported that Mexico remains one of the deadliest countries in the world for journalists, although they noted some limited progress.
— From CNN’s Karol Suarez and David von Blohn. Alert written by Wayne Chang.
