Reporter killed at restaurant she owns, hours after journalist shot dead in separate attack in Mexico

The UN human rights office in Mexico said on Wednesday that journalists in Mexico needed more protection Gunmen killed a journalist whose Facebook news page reported on the violent state of Michoacan in western Mexico. Then, less than 24 hours later, an entertainment reporter was killed in the western city of Colima at a restaurant she owned.

Journalist Mauricio Solís of the news site Minuto por Minuto was shot dead late Tuesday, just moments after conducting a sidewalk interview with the mayor of the city of Uruapan. According to prosecutors, a second person was injured in the shooting.

Solís had just finished an interview with Mayor Carlos Manzo on the street in front of City Hall. Manzo told local media he walked away and “two minutes later, I think, and just a few feet away, we heard shots, four or five shots.”

“We ran for cover because we thought the attack was on us,” Manzo said. “After a few minutes we found out that Mauricio was the one they attacked.”

Manzo said he could not rule out a connection between the interview and the killing.

The radio station where Solis worked mourned his killing in a statement posted on social media.

“Mauricio was more than a colleague, he was an unconditional friend, a source of inspiration and a tireless voice in serving our community,” the broadcaster said.

The U.N. rights office said Solís was at least the fifth journalist killed in Mexico this year. It said he had previously reported safety issues related to his work. His Facebook page covered community events and the drug cartel violence that has devastated the city.

“His assassination is a wake-up call to defend the right to information and freedom of expression in Mexico,” the office wrote.

A growing number of the journalists killed in Mexico were self-employed, reporting for local Facebook and online news sites.

Uruapan is the closest major city to Michoacan's avocado-growing region and has been the site of extortion by drug cartels and turf wars between gangs. The cartels demand protection money from local avocado and lime plantations, cattle ranches and almost every other business.

Solís reported a suspicious fire at a local market shortly before the shooting. Sometimes gangs have burned down businesses that refused to meet extortion demands.

Then on Wednesday afternoon, entertainment reporter Patricia Ramírez González was found with serious injuries in her restaurant in Colima and died at the scene, the Colima prosecutor's office said.

Local media said Ramírez, better known as Paty Bunbury, published a blog about local entertainment and wrote for a Colima newspaper.

The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists condemned both killings and called for transparent investigations.

Mexico is one of the countries in the world plagued by violence related to drug trafficking most dangerous countries for journalistssay news advocacy groups.

According to Reporters Without Borders, more than 150 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 1994 – and 2022 was one of them deadliest years ever for journalists in Mexico, with at least 15 dead.

Media professionals are regularly targeted in Mexicooften in direct retaliation for their work on issues such as corruption and the country's notoriously violent drug traffickers.

In August, a Mexican journalist reported on one of the country's most dangerous criminal cases killed by gunmenand two of his government-appointed bodyguards were wounded.

In April, it was Roberto Figueroa who covered local politics and gained a following on social media through satirical videos found dead in a car in his hometown of Huitzilac in Morelos, a state south of Mexico City where drug-related violence is widespread.

All but a handful of murders and kidnappings remain unsolved.

“Impunity is the norm for crimes against the press,” the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a report on Mexico in March.