A Colombian journalist was shot dead in a coca growing area near the border with Venezuela, an NGO that tracks such crimes said on Friday.
The reporter, Jorge Mendez, was attacked “by armed men in the town of Tibu in the department of Norte de Santander,” the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (Indepaz) said in a statement.
Mendez “was a recognized social leader, reporter and community journalist,” the NGO said.
He was murdered in a region where left-wing guerrillas and far-right paramilitaries are known to be active.
Tibu is the city with the world’s largest expansion of drug crops, where more than 22,000 hectares of coca, the base ingredient of cocaine, is grown, according to the UN.
Former Tibu mayor Nelson Leal ruled from a distance for months due to threats, while the city’s prosecutor was assassinated in 2021.
The Inter-American Press Association condemned Mendez’s killing and, in commentary on X, called for “a timely and comprehensive investigation.”
