Two journalists have been killed in separate incidents in Mexico within 24 hours

MEXICO CITY — The UN human rights office in Mexico said on Wednesday that journalists in Mexico need more protection after gunmen killed a man whose Facebook news page reported on the the violent state of Michoacan in western Mexico.

Less than 24 hours later, an entertainment reporter in the western city of Colima was murdered in a restaurant she owned.

Journalist Mauricio Solís of the news page Minuto por Minuto was shot dead late Tuesday, just moments after conducting a sidewalk interview with the mayor of the city of Uruapan (ooh-roo-WAH-pan). A second person was injured in the shooting, according to prosecutors.

Solís had just finished an interview on the street in front of City Hall with Mayor Carlos Manzo. Manzo told local media that he ran away and “two minutes later, I think, and just a few meters away, we heard gunshots, four or five gunshots.”

“We took cover because we thought the attack was on us,” Manzo said. “After a few minutes we found out that Mauricio was the one they were attacking.”

Manzo said he could not rule out a link between the interview and the murder.

The U.N. rights office said Solís was at least the fifth journalist killed in Mexico this year. It said he had previously reported security issues related to his work. His Facebook page posted about community events and the drug cartel violence that plagued the city.

“His murder is a wake-up call to defend the right to information and freedom of expression in Mexico,” the office wrote.

An increasing one A large proportion of the journalists murdered in Mexico were self-employed and reported for local Facebook and online news sites.

Uruapan is the closest major city to Michoacan’s avocado-growing region and has been the scene of drug cartel extortions and gang battles. The cartels demand protection money from local avocado and lime orchardscattle ranches and almost every other business.

Solís reported about a suspicious fire at a local market just before the shooting. Gangs have that sometimes burned companies that refuse to pay extortion demands.

Then, entertainment reporter Patricia Ramírez González was found with serious injuries in her restaurant in Colima on Wednesday afternoon and died on the spot, the Colima prosecutor’s office said.

According to local media, Ramírez, better known as Paty Bunbury, published a blog about local entertainment and contributed to a Colima newspaper.

The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists condemned both killings and called for transparent investigations.

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