![]() ![]() Hearing the news that his friend and fellow reporter Pérez was shot, González arrived at the school within minutes, even before police. “But in a school? This is the first time.” They happen in homes, on the streets, between cars. ![]() “The assassinations are frequent,” González, 47, said. González, who has been a reporter in Acayucan for two decades, said in an interview with The Washington Post that reporters refer to the area as a “red zone.” So far this month, there have been 15 killings in the town, slayings of journalists and non-journalists alike. They include Candido Rios, a local crime reporter shot dead in August at a highway gas station 25 miles from Acayucan, according to the Associated Press, and columnist Ricardo Monlui, who was slain in the town of Yanga in March as he left a restaurant with his wife and son.Ī month earlier, Honduran photojournalist Edwin Rivera Paz was shot and killed by gunmen on a motorcycle in Acayucan. At least three journalists have been killed there this year. ![]() Far too many murders across the country go unsolved.Īnd Veracruz, the state along Mexico’s Gulf Coast, is one of the country’s deadliest spots. Six have been killed in 2017, making it a record year. In 43 of those cases the motive has been directly related to the victims’ work as a journalist. Since 1992, 95 journalists have been killed in Mexico, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. ![]() The group named Mexico the most dangerous country in the world for journalists, tied with war-torn Syria. Pérez became the 12th journalist to be killed in Mexico this year, according to the organization Reporters Without Borders. “You can’t even relax in a classroom with your children. “I can’t believe that they would do it in such a cruel, cruel way, in front of the children. “I can’t believe it,” Mendoza said in an interview with local reporters outside the school, which was surrounded by police tape. But she never imagined something as brutal as this, in an elementary school classroom full of children. She knew how often journalists got killed in this part of Mexico. His wife had warned him of the risks, she told reporters. Pérez had spent half his life reporting on local crime and drug trafficking, working in one of the world’s most deadly places for journalists. “I thought they were fireworks that some child had brought into the classroom.” “I gave him a kiss because I was leaving, and right then I heard the shots,” she said. The mother had to leave the event early for work, and her husband, a local police reporter in his early 30s, planned to stay behind. Shortly after 11 a.m., Pérez’s wife, Adelina Mendoza, stepped outside the first-grade classroom with her son, who wanted to play out on the patio outside with his friends, she later told local reporters. The door of Pérez’s son’s first grade classroom was covered with Santa Claus-themed decorations. Parents, teachers and students enjoyed cake, music, dancing and piñatas. Gumaro Pérez, a Mexican journalist, arrived just on time for the Christmas festival at his 6-year-old son’s elementary school on Tuesday morning.ĭozens of families had gathered at the school in Acayucan, a town in the Mexican state of Veracruz, for a typical family celebration just before the holidays. ![]()
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