Mexico City ( Photojournalist killed and dismembered - One month after hire date )

Photojournalist’s Mutilated Body Found in Northern Mexico

MEXICO CITY – The mutilated body of Daniel Alejandro Martinez, a photographer for Mexico’s La Vanguardia newspaper, was found along with that of another young man in the northern city of Saltillo, the daily reported Thursday.

The dismembered bodies of the 22-year-old Martinez and 23-year-old Julian Alejandro Zamora Gracia were found Wednesday in Los Arcos, a neighborhood in the southern section of Saltillo, the Coahuila state Attorney General’s Office said.

The victims’ identification was missing when the bodies were discovered in Saltillo, the capital of Coahuila, the AG’s office said.

Martinez worked for the society pages of La Vanguardia and had been hired just a month ago, last reporting on Tuesday to get his assignments, the newspaper said.

The photojournalist failed to show up on Tuesday afternoon to cover a story he had been assigned, prompting “company personnel to try, unsuccessfully, to locate him with the assistance of relatives and friends,” La Vanguardia said in a front-page story.

The AG’s office identified the two young men “as members of an organized group” because it “irresponsibly” interpreted some messages left by the presumed killers with the bodies, La Vanguardia said.

An International Press Institute, or IPI, and World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, or WAN-IFRA, delegation visited Mexico in February and called for more protection for journalists.

Both the IPI and Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, ranked Mexico as the fourth most dangerous country in the world for journalists in 2012, trailing only Syria, Somalia and Pakistan.

More than 80 journalists have been murdered and 18 others have been reported missing since 2005 in Mexico, the Mexican National Human Rights Commission, or CNDH, said in a report released in December.

Some 658 complaints were received from members of the news media from Jan. 1, 2005, to Nov. 30, 2012, the rights body said.

The war on drugs launched by former President Felipe Calderon, who was in office from 2006 to 2012, left about 70,000 people dead, or an average of 32 per day, in Mexico, officials say. EFE