A Colombian journalist was shot lifeless in a coca-growing space close to the border with Venezuela, an NGO monitoring such crimes reported on Friday.

The reporter, Jorge Mendez, was attacked “by armed males within the city of Tibu within the Norte de Santander division, mentioned the Institute for Improvement and Peace Research (Indepaz) in an announcement.

Mendez “was a acknowledged social chief, reporter and neighborhood journalist,” mentioned the NGO.

He was killed in a area the place leftist guerrillas and far-right paramilitaries are recognized to function.

Tibu is the city with the world’s largest enlargement of drug crops, the place greater than 22,000 hectares (54,000 acres) of coca, the bottom element of cocaine, are grown, in keeping with the UN.

The previous mayor of Tibu, Nelson Leal, ruled for months from a distance as a result of threats, whereas the city’s prosecutor was murdered in 2021.

The Inter-American Press Affiliation condemned Mendez’s homicide and referred to as for “a well timed and exhaustive investigation,” in feedback on X.