Newspaper in southern Mexico says reporter shot to death

MEXICO CITY – A reporter for the newspaper El Heraldo de Chiapas in southern Mexico was shot to death Friday as he left his home to work on a story, the publication said.

El Heraldo said journalist Mario Gomez, 35, was attacked by two men outside his home in Yajalon, a town in a jungle area of Chiapas state near the border with Guatemala.

Gomez is at least the 10th news worker to be killed in Mexico this year.

The newspaper said Gomez had worked for it for almost a decade covering all kinds of events in the region. The area was at the epicenter of the 1994 Zapatista uprising and political violence and conflicts over land are frequent.

In a statement, El Heraldo demanded that authorities conduct “a thorough investigation to find those responsible.”

The Chiapas state prosecutor’s office issued a statement Friday night condemning the killing and pledging to “exhaust all lines of investigation.” It did not provide any details of the shooting.