The Mexican journalists' tragedy

The drug-related violence that has been engulfing Mexico affects in particular journalists.Since 2000, 55 journalists have been murdered, 18 of them since the start of 2010.
In the last days the brutality of the attacks against the press has reached awesome proportions and it increasingly takes place far from the Northern "narco states" of Chihuaha, Tamaulipas or Nuevo Leon. The Atlantic port city of Veracruz is in the eye of the storm with an increased number of killings linked to the frontal turf battles between the Zetas and Sinaloa cartels.
On May 4 the dismembered bodies of two news photographers specializing in crime coverage were found in a canal, in Veracruz state, together with those of a former photojournalist and another man.
In London the Catholic NGO CAFOD opened on May 3 an photo exhibition called The Silenced: Fighting for Press Freedom in Mexico to highlight a drama that is unfolding without my attention in the European media's radar screen.
This killing spree targeting journalists is one barometer of the larger crime epidemic hitting the country. Since President Calderon launched a full fledged army offensive against the cartels in 2006, more than 50,000 Mexicans - gang members, security forces, police, journalists and innocent bystanders - have been killed in drug-related violence.