4 journalists attacked in Mexico's violence plagued Guerrero state

Nov. 29 (UPI) -- Four news videographers were attacked Tuesday by unidentified assailants in the violent, crime-plagued Mexican city of Chilpanicgo, in the Pacific coast Guerrero state, authorities said.

Prosecutors said all four of the journalists had been taken to a local hospital but did not report the severity of their injuries.

Prosecutors are considering these abductions and attempted murder. All of the journalists appeared to work for local newspapers or websites.

The attack occurred outside a local army barracks, according to the independent press group Reporters Without Borders, as the video journalists were returning from an evening event.

There were no additional details available.

The abductions in Chilpanicgo come just a few days after 5 journalists and family members, including a father and son and husband and wife team, were abducted in the once popular tourist town of Taxco, also in violence plagued Guerrero state.

The number of violent events and kidnappings has been on the rise in Guerrero state most recently, and has been the scene of deadly turf battles between a dozen drug gangs and cartels in the past.

Earlier this month, a photographer for a newspaper in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez was found shot to death in his car. His death was the fifth instance of a journalist being killed in Mexico so far in 2023.

In the past five years alone, the Committee to Protect Journalists documented the killings of at least 54 journalists in Mexico.