5 journalists, family members abducted in violence plagued Mexican state

Nov. 24 (UPI) -- Three journalists and two of their family members were reportedly abducted by armed men in a Mexican state known for violent abductions, prosecutors in southern Guerero state said Thursday.

Press groups say Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, second only to war zones.

The prosecutor's office said all five people were abducted between Sunday and Wednesday in the colonial tourist town of Taxco.

One journalist, Marco Antonio Toledo, his adult son and wife were abducted from their home Sunday and a husband and wife team, Silvia Nayssa Arce and Alberto Sánchez, were captured on Wednesday, according to the press freedom group Article 19.

None of them have been heard from since.

Toledo worked for the online news site The Afternoon Chronicle in the nearby city of Chilpancingo, and Arce and Sánchez worked for another online news site, RedSiete.

Toledo had received threats earlier this year from a drug cartel, which had ordered him not to publish a story. Toledo had also recently reported on a case of local corruption, The Afternoon Chronicle reported.

The news site called on authorities to find Toledo, and said the area "has been silenced by the drug cartels."

"Previously, other journalists have been kidnapped by drug cartels ... and have exiled themselves to other parts of the state and other states to save themselves," the news site reported," the site said.

Taxco has long been popular with tourists for its silver artisanry, colonial architecture and colorful Easter week celebrations. But, as has been the case with other Mexican communities once removed from violence and considered safe for tourists, the city has become a hotbed of turf battles between rival drugs and weapons cartels and the lucrative trade in extorting protection money from local businesses.

The violent La Familia Michoacana Tlacos cartels are fighting turf battles in Taxco, about 110 miles south of Mexico City, and the country is no stranger to extreme cartel-related violence.

In 2012, the bodies of three news photographers were found in a canal in the Gulf coast city of Veracruz, stuffed into plastic bags, in what was then one of the largest mass attacks on reporters in Mexico. A year earlier, three journalists were reported killed or missing in the same week.

Those deaths and disappearances were blamed on the Zetas drug cartel.