In just four days, the journalistic guild was painted red again after the murder of journalists Yessenia Mollinedo Falconi and Sheila Johana García Olivera, director and reporter of the digital media agency Veraz, in southern Veracruz. With them, the number of deadly attacks against communicators increased to 11 so far this year.
According to the authorities, both journalists were murdered on Monday afternoon inside a car, in the Cerro Alto neighborhood, on the border of that municipality with Minatitlán, Veracruz. The first versions indicated that both reporters were in the parking lot of a convenience store when they were attacked with bullets.
After the attack, Yesenia Mollinedo was taken to a local hospital, however, she later lost her life. While the attackers fled the scene.
Mollinedo was an all-terrain reporter, she also sought to know the opinion of people on issues that affected the local, as well as some festivities. She was originally from Veracruz.
Through an information card, the entity’s Secretary of Public Security indicated that in coordination with federal forces, it activated the Red Code operation, after the attack on the journalists.
They fail attack
The State Commission for the Attention and Protection of Journalists of Veracruz condemned the events, while demanding that the ministerial authority make the journalistic activity of both communicators the main line of investigation of the crime.
Verónica Hernández Giadáns, attorney general of the state of Veracruz, reported that there will be no impunity in the case and that the avenues of investigation will be exhausted to clarify the facts, including her journalistic activity.
For his part, the rapporteur of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Pedro Vaca Villarreal, said after the two murders that “by conviction -or reputation- it is NOT possible to tolerate that a democracy coexists with a slaughter of journalists.”
The Alianza de Medios Mx demanded that the crimes be investigated because “impunity cannot reign in this or any other case.”
In turn, Article 19 reported that it already documents the murder of journalists, bringing the total to three female journalists murdered in Mexico during 2022.
The deaths of Mollinedo Falconi and García Olivera are added to those of Luis Enrique Ramírez Ramos; Lourdes Maldonado and Margarito Martínez; Heber Lopez Cruz; Juan Carlos Muniz; Jorge Camero Zazueta; Robert Toledo; José Luis Gamboa and Armando Linares.