Mexico's drug wars have been well reported, but there is a frightening, new phenomenon that is going largely unnoticed. A growing number of journalists are being killed or 'disappeared' as they try to report on drug violence and the growing links between the cartels and the corrupt police and politicians.
Reporter Evan Williams and Director Alex Nott travel to Ciudad Juarez, on the US border, to experience the daily life of a journalist who has been called one of the most courageous women in Mexico.
Luz Sosa is chief crime reporter on El Diario, the main newspaper in Ciudad Juarez, where more than 3000 were murdered last year as powerful drug cartels fight for control of routes to smuggle cocaine and heroin into the US.
Luz spends her days travelling from one crime scene to another trying to ascertain the truth of what's happened and provide a record of the conflict, which is spiraling out of control and in which hundreds of women, grandmothers and even babies have been murdered in revenge attacks or warnings.
Someone - possibly the drugs cartels, or the security services, or both - is targeting her, and several colleagues have already paid the ultimate price.
Just two years ago, Luz's predecessor, crime reporter Armando Rodriguez, was shot dead in front of his home as he was about to take his children to school. No one knows for sure who killed him but Luz says he had written about the links between the cartels and corrupt politicians.
Nearby in the office there is another small flower by the photograph of Luis Carlos Santiago, a 21-year-old photographer. In September 2010, Luz got a call that there was another murder. They arrived at the scene to find their young colleague dead.
It was after she wrote up this story that she too received a direct threat. Her front-page article was found next to a severed human head on the outskirts of the city.
A single mother of two, she says she's never sure whether each day will be the one when she doesn't come home to her kids. Her mother says she prays every day for her daughter's safety and that she will see her again at the end of the day.
The team also meets TV journalist Arturo Perez. He tells Williams that crime gangs, corrupt officials or police could be responsible for the killing and disappearances of journalists but there is never any credible investigation into these killings.
Just across the border in the United States, Williams and Nott meet one of Juarez's leading journalists, who has been given asylum. He claims that after he published an investigation into corrupt officials linked to the cartels he received a threat from an official in the state governor's office that he would be the next journalist to die.
He also claims that some police are involved in extortion with the drug gangs, and that they take their orders from corrupt politicians involved with the drug business. 'They can do anything, they use their weapons and uniforms for this as they know they will never be prosecuted,' he says.
Watch now on 4oD
On TV
First Shown
| Date | Time | Channel |
|---|---|---|
| Friday 20 May 2011 | 7.30PM | Channel 4 |
Last Shown
| Date | Time | Channel |
|---|---|---|
| Friday 20 May 2011 | 7.30PM | Channel 4 |
You must enable JavaScript to view comments.
