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In unrelated incident, police discover 8 severed heads along roadside
Mexico's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH, Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos) called on the government Tuesday to find four Mexican journalists reported missing in or near the violence-wracked Durango.
The journalists include two cameramen from the Televisa network, a reporter for Multimedios television and a reporter for the newspaper El Vespertino, The Associated Press reported.
"The lack of investigation into attacks on journalists has made them more vulnerable in doing their work," the CNDH said in a statement.
The four disappeared Monday in the Laguna region, which includes Durango and areas of the neighboring Coahuila.
The commission said three of them were "picked up" − a tactic frequently used by drug gangs in which victims are forced into waiting vehicles − around noon Monday, and the fourth was snatched that night.
The area has been wracked by drug gang violence. Prosecutors say officials at a prison in Gómez Palacio − the Durango city where some of the journalists are based − allowed drug cartel gunmen to leave the penitentiary temporarily and provided them guns and vehicles to carry out executions.
According to AP, at least seven journalists have been killed in Mexico so far in 2010. Many more Mexican reporters have received threats from drug gangs.
Also Tuesday, the severed heads of eight men were found left in pairs along highways in Durango, state prosecutors said.
The bodies had not yet been located, but the victims appeared to have been between 25 and 30 years old, officials said.
According to AP, prosecutors in Puebla reported that three federal police agents were shot to death on a highway in a confrontation with gunmen. The assailants escaped.
In the border state of Tamaulipas, Army officials reported Monday that they had captured nine Guatemalan citizens during patrols against drug trafficking organizations and seized seven grenades and two guns from the suspects.
A day earlier, troops in Tamaulipas detained 11 people believed to work for the Zetas drug gang and seized five rifles.
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