Mexican journalists fear death

Each time Maria Martinez leaves home, she fears it will be for the last time. Only her bodyguards prevent her from joining the eight journalists murdered already this year in Mexico, she believes.

“I know that my life’s at risk every day and it’s terrible to live with the threat,” the 55year-old reporter said in her house in the central city of Aguascalientes, protected by locks and security cameras.

Two and a half months into 2022, the number of homicides of media workers in Mexico has already surpassed the toll for the whole of last year.

Ms Martinez, who runs the news website Pendulo Informativo, said she, too, had received death threats due to her investigations into corruption and links between officials and drug traffickers.

Several police officers were jailed after her reporting, and she was placed in a government program providing protection to of journalists.

Only a fraction of the media murders have resulted in convictions for the killers.