The body of Sinaloa sports reporter Omar Iván Camacho was found under a bridge on Sunday evening in the municipality of Salvador Alvarado. He had been beaten and tortured.

According to friends and family, the 35-year-old journalist disappeared around 10:00am after he covered the inauguration of a local baseball league in the city of Guamúchil, after which he did not reply to messages and calls.

Nearly nine hours later, at around 7:00 pm, Camacho’s remains were found near the community of La Escalera. His body showed signs of torture and a severe head injury.

Camacho worked as a sports reporter for Noticiero Altavoz and ran his own website dedicated to sports news. The journalist also taught English at a local school.

He is the fifth journalist to be murdered so far this year, following the killing of Santiago Barroso Alfaro in his home in San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora. Ten journalists were murdered last year in Mexico.

Human rights undersecretary Alejandro Encinas told reporters today that the federal government will implement new protective measures for journalists and human rights advocates and allocate an additional 75 million pesos (US $3.93 million) in funding to the program, which received 125 million pesos last year.

Encinas said 790 people are currently in the protection program, of whom 292 are journalists and the rest human rights workers. Most are concentrated in just 10 states.

Source: Milenio (sp)