A Mexican newspaper in the border city of Juarez announced it was closing on Sunday following the violent death of a journalist, saying not one more of its reporters would pay a deadly price for their work.
Oscar Cantú Murguía, the owner of Norte newspaper in Juarez, said in a farewell address to readers that the "tragic" killing of journalist Miroslava Breach on March 23, other "deadly assaults" and the overall lack of security for journalists had made it too dangerous for the publication to continue working freely and safely.
Cantú said Sunday's paper would be the final print edition.
Breach, who was a correspondent for national newspaper La Jornada and also collaborated with Norte, was shot eight times outside her garage and died while she was being taken to the hospital, according to The Associated Press.
La Jornada said Breach was with one of her three children at the time of the attack.
Cantú said that throughout its 27 years, Norte was attacked and punished for exposing acts of corruption. But he said he "was not willing for any more" of his collaborators to pay the price of their lives for their work as journalists under his watch, nor to pay that price himself.
The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas said at the time that Breach’s death was one of three in Mexico in March alone.
Cecilio Pineda Birto, director of the newspaper La Voz de Tierra Caliente, and journalist Ricardo Monlui Cabrera were also gunned down last month, according to the center.
And the Center to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called for a thorough investigation of the shooting of veteran journalist Armando Arrieta Granados.
Citing local reports, the CPJ said Arrieta, the editorial director of the Veracruz newspaper La Opinión, was shot as he returned home last week in the city of Poza Rica. He remains in serious condition, according to the center.
The CPJ has identified at least 38 journalists who have been killed in Mexico since 1992 with the motive confirmed to be related to their work.
Fifty more have been killed under circumstances in which the motive was unclear but it was possible they were killed because of their work.