Another journalist murdered in Honduras

TEGUCIGALPA – Radio reporter Medardo Flores became the 16th journalist murdered in Honduras over the past 18 months when he drove into an ambush and his car was sprayed with bullets, his boss said Friday.

Flores, 50, was attacked when he was driving from his small farm to Puerto Cortes on the Caribbean coast, some 300 kilometers (185 miles) north of Tegucigalpa, said Arnulfo Aguilar, director of Radio Uno, where Flores worked.

“The vehicle was riddled with bullets – it was attacked on all four sides,” Aguilar said.

Flores was also a supporter of ousted former president Manuel Zelaya and was a regional treasurer for a pro-Zelaya group. The late reporter had spent the 1980s in exile fearing for his life during the low-intensity conflict against leftists in Honduras.

Public safety has been hit hard in Honduras since the June 29, 2009 coup that ousted Zelaya.

President Porfirio Lobo was elected president in November that year, amid a political impasse between the de facto government that followed the coup and Zelaya.

Sixteen journalists have been killed in Honduras since February 2010.