Peruvian journalist gunned down by hitmen in Amazon – DW

Peruvian journalist Raul Celis Lopez has been shot within the head by two unidentified males on a motorcycle as he was heading to work in Iquitos by motorcycle taxi on Wednesday.

Lopez had reported from Iquitos, deep within the Peruvian Amazon, for greater than three a long time.

The 70-year-old radio host had commonly mentioned corruption and the violence of the armed gangs that plague Iquitos on his every day present affairs program.

“None of his private belongings have been taken, a powerful indication that this was a focused execution,” Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a statement on Wednesday.

Condemnation of killing

Press freedom organizations have been fast to sentence the killing.

The Inter American Press Affiliation lamented the homicide of a journalist “identified for his denunciations of corruption, extortion, and crime within the area.”

“We’re deeply alarmed by the upsurge in violence towards journalists in Peru,” the president of the Inter American Press Affiliation, Jose Roberto Dutriz, mentioned in an announcement.

The Nationwide Affiliation of Journalists of Peru demanded a “immediate and rigorous” investigation of Lopez’s dying.

RSF known as Lopez’s dying a “tragic wake-up name.”

“Journalists reporting on the social, political and environmental realities of the Amazon are being left with out safety,” the RSF mentioned in its assertion.

Second killing of reporter this yr

Lopez’s killing is the second such homicide this yr.

In January, the proprietor of a regional TV channel, Gaston Medina, was shot and killed as he was leaving his home within the south-central metropolis of Ica.

Medina had additionally reported on Peru’s extortion epidemic.

Peru is experiencing an unprecedented wave of racketeering and gang violence, main authorities to declare a state of emergency in a number of components of the nation.

On the identical time, the Latin American nation has seen a worrying decline in its media freedom, sliding to one hundred and thirtieth place out of 180 international locations on RSF’s 2025 Press Freedom Index.

That is a fall of 53 positions since 2022.