Unidentified Gunmen Shoot At 4 News Photographers In Southern Mexico

Unidentified gunmen shot at four news photographers Tuesday in the southern Mexican city of Chilpancingo, located in Guerrero State.

The authorities in Guerrero, a state that often witnessed violence and fights between drug gangs and cartels, said all four photographers have been taken to the hospital; however, they did not reveal the intensity of the victims' injuries.

The photographers worked for either news websites or local newspapers. Prosecutors in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero called this a case of attempted murder, AP News reported.

Reporters Without Borders, an international non-profit and non-governmental organization, said the incident took place outside local army barracks while the journalists were returning from an event.

Journalists in Mexico have been facing threats for over a decade now. There have been concerns regarding the safety of journalists, especially those covering sensitive topics, including drug trafficking, organized crime, corruption, and politics.

Last week, three journalists along with two of their relatives were kidnapped by gunmen in Guerrero state. The five were held captive from Nov. 20 to 22 in Taxo City, a popular destination among tourists.

The abduction took place after the journalists, who worked for an online news website called the Afternoon Chronicle, received threats from a drug cartel to not publish a story related to local corruption.

"Previously, other journalists have been kidnapped by drug cartels ... and have exiled themselves to other parts of the state and other states to save themselves," the news site told authorities last week.

According to CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists) data and reports, over 130 journalists have been murdered in Mexico between 2000 and 2022, noting that many of these cases remain unsolved.

One of the spine-chilling incidents happened in 2012 when three news photographers' bodies were found in plastic bags, dumped in a canal in the Gulf coast city of Veracruz. The Los Zetas drug cartel gang, founded in 1999, was accused of killing these photographers.

In the last year alone, three journalists -- Alfonso Margarito Martínez Esquivel, Armando Linares López and Heber López Vásquez -- have been murdered in Mexico.

Mexico's President Andrés Manuel López Obrador met his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on Nov. 17, where they discussed illegal drug trafficking. According to Xi, Mexico and China should use intergovernmental working mechanisms to deepen cooperation in anti-drug law enforcement.