The Honduran city of San Pedro Sula, now considered the most dangerous city in the world for the 159 killings per each 100,000 persons -- surpassing the violence of Ciudad Juárez in Mexico -- has become a hostile place for journalists.
On Thursday, March 1, La Prensa reported that a radio announcer received death threats that were reported to the local prosecutor and the National Human Rights Commission. Mavis Cruz, director of the program News on the Hour that airs on Radio Libertad, said that her husband answered a phone call at their home in which the caller warned the journalist that she and her son would be "broken," reported La Tribuna.
The journalist said she suspected that the threat was related to a story from that day about police, according to La Tribuna.
The same day, news broke that a journalism student who covered sports for local radio and television programs was killed. Saira Fabiola Almendárez Borjas, 22 years old, was found dead on the outskirts of San Pedro Sula. Almendárez was a student at the Metropolitan University of Honduras and had been working for sports programs on Canal 30 and Radio Cadena Voces, as well as the university program Espacio Vital on Televisión Educativa Nacional, according to La Prensa.
The motives for the killing remain unknown. According to non-governmental organizations, police ignore the killings of youths, and in January alone, 80 youths were violently killed in Honduras, reported El Heraldo.
Since 2010, 17 journalists have been killed in Honduras, considered the second-most dangerous country in the hemisphere for journalists.
