A reporter at a daily newspaper in Tabasco was shot dead in front of her house Tuesday night in Huimanguillo.
Municipal authorities said two men on a motorcycle approached Norma Sarabia around 9:30 last night and addressed the reporter by name before shooting her several times and fleeing.
Sarabia was a correspondent for Tabasco Hoy in Huimanguillo, one of the most violent municipalities in the state. She also collaborated with other Tabasco media, including Diario Presente, El Sol del Sureste and Diario Avance.
Police are investigating whether the attack was related to Sarabia’s work as a journalist or as a teacher in a local school.
Tabasco Hoy editorial director Héctor Tapia told the news agency EFE that Sarabia had expressed fear about working in Huimanguillo.
“More than once, she made comments about being afraid, about how difficult it was in Huimanguillo with the insecurity, and that she had received threats,” he said. “Eventually we decided she should stop signing her articles.”
Tapia added that the killing has shocked the newspaper’s staff and has left them feeling vulnerable.
Sarabia had worked at the newspaper for about 15 years covering crime and violence, everything from car accidents to homicides and kidnappings. In the months before her death, she covered at least a dozen murders, chronicling the rising violence in the area around Huimanguillo, much of which is related to organized crime and fuel theft.
Sarabia had previously reported being threatened in 2014 after covering the death while in custody of a former police officer accused of involvement in kidnappings.
Sarabia is the 14th journalist killed in Mexico since President López Obrador took office in December, and the first woman journalist to be killed, according to the organization Reporteras en Guardia.
She is also the second journalist to be killed this year in Tabasco, after radio host Jesús Eugenio Ramos Rodríguez was killed in Emiliano Zapata on February 9.
Source: Reforma (sp), Aristegui Noticias (sp), El Financiero (sp), Excelsior (sp)
