Mexican journalist Roxana Berenice Guzman Ramirez has been found dead nearly a month after she was kidnapped.
Ramirez had been missing since June 2, when a group of armed, masked men reportedly broke into her home and abducted her. On Friday, July 3, the Veracruz state attorney general’s office confirmed that human remains discovered on a ranch in the municipality of Moloacan belonged to Ramirez.
According to local reports, the killers tried to dispose of Ramirez’s body by dissolving her in oil drums filled with fuel. Eight individuals in connection with the case have been detained.
Ramirez had been working as a journalist covering local issues, including complaints about rotten eggs being sold in the region and a case involving a family seeking compensation after an accident involving a municipal vehicle. She previously fled Veracruz in 2017 after her husband was shot and killed.
Her death adds to growing concerns over violence against journalists in Mexico in recent years.
“This crime adds to the recurring episodes of violence, threats, and attacks against journalists and media outlets in Mexico, and makes Roxana Guzmán the third journalist killed in the state of Veracruz during the first half of 2026, following the murders of Carlos Leonardo Ramírez Castro and Luis Ángel López Valdez, both killed in the city of Poza Rica. These events confirm Mexico as one of the most dangerous countries in the world for the practice of journalism,” the International Association of Broadcasting (IAB) said in a statement. “IAB urges the competent Mexican authorities to continue the ongoing investigations and to rigorously sanction all those responsible, both material and intellectual perpetrators, for this atrocious crime. It further reiterates that it is the State's duty to adopt all necessary measures to guarantee the safety of journalists and media outlets within its territory. None of these crimes should go unpunished.”
