A young journalist was murdered and his body was found on Friday in an area of Colombia where guerrilla groups and drug traffickers operate, a press freedom group said.
Mateo Perez, 23, disappeared on Tuesday while reporting on violence in a rural area in the northwestern department of Antioquia, where both dissidents from the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and drug traffickers from the Clan del Golfo, the most powerful cartel in the Latin American country, operate.
The twenty-five-year-old had become an important “voice representing the local community” through social networking sites and was therefore “facing pressure” as he conducted investigations “into the illegal economy linked to armed organizations,” the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FLIP) emphasized via X.
“The murder of Mateo Pérez occurred in the El Hoyo area, in the municipality of Briceño, Colombia. The perpetrator, Jhon Edison Chalá Torrejano, a member of the paramilitary “Democratic Front Darío Gutiérrez”, which belongs to a splinter branch of the FARC group, is known for its activities in illegal gold mining. This paramilitary organization does not negotiate with the government and has extremely violent practices to control illegal mining,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro said via X.
