Female journalists brutally murdered in Mexico City

The two news reporters, Ana Maria Marcela Yarce Viveros, 35, and Rocio Gonzalez Trapaga, 26, were discovered dead Wednesday evening by joggers in the El Mirador park in a popular neighborhood, but the identities of the two women were not confirmed until Thursday morning, according to Law Enforcement Examiner's DEA source. According to the source, the two women's bodies showed signs of having been beaten to death by the unknown suspects. "The bodies of the women were found completely naked hidden under a plastic sheet and the preliminary investigations of the homicide department indicate that it may be the result of an assault," said the news magazine Contralinea.

Yarce is the founder of a weekly magazine that specializes in investigative journalism, while Gonzalez Trapaga is a freelance reporter who once worked for the main national television station Televisa. The Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights earlier this year reported that Mexico is the most dangerous country in the region for journalists with five other journalists murdered since the beginning of 2011. While no one has claimed responsibility for the narco-terrorist killings, Mexican officials believe one of the powerful drug cartels ordered the murders.

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The US-based journalists' group Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 58 journalists have been murdered in Mexico since 1992. The group alleges that 25 of the journalists who were murdered were killed in reprisals for their work. "One of the common indicators in these cases is the destructive presence of drug-trafficking in certain areas of the country, which has had an impact on the rise in violence against journalists," Mexico's Special Prosecutor for Crimes Against Freedom of Speech Gustavo Salas said. Salas stated that journalists who work close to the US-Mexico border were the most vulnerable to acts of violence. The slaying of crime reporter Yolanda Ordaz de la Cruz, who was found dead about a month ago showed the brutality of these killer. The well-known Mexican journalist had her throat slit ear-to-ear by her captors after they had abducted her in Vera Cruz. In June, another Mexican journalist was shot dead and killed, along with his wife and 21-year-old son, by gunmen who burst into their home. Miguel Angel Lopez Velasco, who wrote about politics and crime for the Notivia newspaper, was killed in his house in the port city of Vera Cruz.