Oaxaca - The car carrying two journalists missing since an attack two days ago on a caravan of human rights activists in the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca was found riddled with bullets, the reporters’ boss said Thursday.
“The car of our comrade reporters has more than 30 bullet impacts,” Contralinea magazine editor Miguel Badillo told a radio station in Mexico City, complaining that state and federal authorities are doing nothing to find his missing employees.
Four vehicles carrying some 40 people were ambushed Tuesday while on a mission to deliver food to residents besieged in San Juan Copala, located some 300 kilometers (186 miles) west of Oaxaca city, the state capital.
Two people, Beatriz Alberta Cariño Trujillo and Finnish national Jyri Antero Jaakkola, were killed in the attack, while another activist was wounded and at least four people remain missing.
“Really, there is no search for our comrades,” Badillo said. “We don’t know ... if they are wounded, in hiding, or ... kidnapped.”
The editor said he and the families of Contralinea reporter Erika Ramirez and photographer David Cilia were “very worried” about their safety.
“We see no action by the government, neither the federal nor the state, to rescue our comrades,” Badillo said, adding that he and several colleagues plan to begin their own search on Friday.
Ramirez and Cilia were in Oaxaca “reconstructing the story” of the murder of a San Juan Copala resident who apparently fell afoul of one of the three Triqui Indian organizations battling for control of the community, the Contralinea editor said.
At least 10 people have been slain in San Juan Copala so far this year.
Amnesty International issued a statement Wednesday urging Mexican authorities to investigate the attack on the caravan.
“Oaxaca authorities have for many years been unwilling to investigate grave human rights violations in that state,” AI’s deputy Americas director, Guadalupe Marengo, said. “The attorney general must now take immediate steps to protect those affected by the attack and carry out a full and impartial investigation.”
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ReplyDeleteMy prayers are with them and their families. I hope everything turns out ok. It breaks my heart to see all this things happening, how there can be people so cold blooded out there.
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