- Journalists Yesenia Mollinedo and Johana García have been killed this Monday in Veracruz shot outside a store in their car. Over the past three years the Mexican Government has recorded 1,945 attacks on press workers.
Yesenia Mollinedo and Sehila Johana García have been killed in Cosoleacaque, south of the Mexican state of Veracruz. The first was the director and journalist of the information portal El Veraz, and the second was the camera of this media. On Monday, on the outskirts of a store but inside the car, unknown men are approaching and shooting until the two women die.
The State Prosecutor's Office explains that it has initiated an investigation and that prosecutors, experts and police are working to resolve the murder and "detect those responsible". The Veracruz Attorney General says that "we are going to break all the lines of research." Precisely, the National Commission for the Protection of Journalists of Mexico has asked government officials that the professional activity of journalists be the main line of investigation for this "cruel crime".
This year there are already eleven journalists who have lost their lives in the hands of sicarians and strangers in Mexico, seven last year, and these two new killings come in full offense against the press workers. Since the incorporation of Andres Manuel López Obrador in December 2018, the media has suffered 1,945 attacks, according to data from the Mexican Government.
Every 38 hours, attack a journalist.
Women journalists are particularly suffering this violence against the press. Cimac, an organization that groups women in the field of communication, states that every 38 hours women journalists are attacked and since the beginning of the government of López Obrador have recorded 661 attacks, without taking into account these two murders of Cosoleacaque. Normally, they suffer information blockages, threats and spies, according to the organization, but also physical attacks until death.
On January 23, Lourdes Maldonado was murdered in Tijuana, even though the latter publicly called for protection from the authorities. The case provoked many protests and complaints from all countries.
Yesennia Mollinedo and Johana García concentrated on Monday in Mexico City to report the killings. They also recalled journalist Luis Enrique Ramírez, who was killed last Thursday in Culiacán.