In the violent Mexican state of Guerrero, 15 homicides were reported over the weekend. Among them was an activist who had been heading a search team looking for the 42 Ayotzinapa students and at least 257 more forcibly disappeared people.
Guerrero state police said that most of the fatal crimes occurred in the internationally renowned tourist city of Acapulco.
Activist Miguel Angel Jimenez — a leader of a community self-defense force, who was heading a team of people searching for victims of enforced disappearances — was found dead of various gunshot wounds. He was found inside his taxi near the town of Xaltianguis, on the outskirts of Acapulco.
Jimenez was heading a group of people searching for at least 300 disappeared victims near Iguala, the city where, in September 2014, the students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training school were attacked and 43 of the them abducted by municipal police before being allegedly handed over to a drug cartel. So far, the remains of only one of the students have been identified.
The safety and security of activists and journalists is also increasingly questioned in light of the murder of journalists Ruben Espinosa, Nadia Vera, and three others in their apartment in Mexico City earlier this month.
The photojournalist, who was working for Mexican investigative magazine Proceso, had recently fled the southwestern state of Veracruz, claiming the government was threatening him. Veracruz one of the two most deadly Mexican states to be a journalist, along with Chihuahua, which lies on the border with the United States.
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Guerrero reported 1,514 homicides in 2014, while in the first semester of 2015, 943 homicides have already been reported. The state has a rate of 42.7 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.
Variousnongovernmental organizations say Acapulco is the third most dangerous city in the world.