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Journalist Shot Dead in Paraguay


Members of the Paraguayan police respond after the shooting of journalist Humberto Andres Coronel Godoy, in Pedro Juan Caballero, Paraguay, Sept. 6, 2022.
Members of the Paraguayan police respond after the shooting of journalist Humberto Andres Coronel Godoy, in Pedro Juan Caballero, Paraguay, Sept. 6, 2022.

Two men on a motorcycle shot dead a journalist for a Paraguayan radio station Tuesday in the country's north, in a city whose crime-fighting mayor was himself assassinated in May, police said.

Humberto Andres Coronel Godoy, 33, was killed in the town of Pedro Juan Caballero near his workplace at Radio Amambay, as he was getting into his car to leave.

Since June, Coronel had been receiving death threats, which had been reported to the police.

"They told him to shut up and stop investigating some facts," provincial police official Nery Portillo told reporters, adding that Coronel had been offered police protection, which he refused.

The mayor of Pedro Juan Caballero, 51-year-old Jose Carlos Acevedo, was shot in the street by unknown assailants in May and died of his injuries days later.

Acevedo had been targeting local criminal gangs, including drug traffickers, in the city near the border with Brazil.

The mayor's niece was killed in 2021.

The radio station for which Coronel worked belongs to the Acevedo family.

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