In Colombia, the third most dangerous country for the press in Latin America after Venezuela and Mexico, reporters continue to die.
Two journalists were shot and killed in the north by assailants on motorcycles. The police made it known. The victims - Leiner Montero Ortega, 37, and Dilia Contreras Cantillo, 39 - worked for the Sol Digital site in the town of Fundacion.
The ambush took place as they returned from a report on a popular festival in the Colombian Caribbean in Santa Rosa de Lima. The Free Press Foundation urged investigators to "consider the work of Leiner and Dilia as journalists" investigating the crime. The Fundacion region is considered particularly at risk, due to the levels of violence, poverty, level of crime and the weakness of the institutions.
Last year, according to the foundation's data, 768 journalists in Colombia suffered some kind of violence . Since a peace agreement was signed with Farc rebels in 2016, 10 journalists have been killed. From January 1 to May 20, 2022, threats were reported to 97 Colombian press and journalists: a large part of these intimidations aimed at the removal of articles on investigations and allegations of corruption.
(Unioneonline / D)