They had just been covering the murder of a suburban bus driver in Alameda IV colony, Zone 18, and were heading back to their workplace in Guatemala City when two people riding motorcycles shot at them repeatedly.
“We are saddened by the death of Rolando Santiz and send our condolences to his friends and family,” said Robert Mahoney, CPJ's deputy director.
Journalists are demanding concrete actions to stop the violence inherent in the environment in which they work every day.” Similarly, the vice president of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), Gonzalo Marroquín, “demanded that the authorities investigate the crime to end the impunity that so often prevails in these types of cases.”[2] “Hundreds of people, including politicians, union members, journalists, firefighters and citizens, congregated at the funeral home in Guatemala's capital city where the journalist's body was taken in order to offer their condolences to Santiz's wife, Lorena Ramírez,” stated IFEX, which noted that Ramírez's father, Héctor Ramírez, known as “Reporter X,” had been killed in violent protests in 2003.
[5] In January 2010, the CPJ also reported that the motive for the murder still remained “unconfirmed.”[6] 2009 was Guatemala's most violent year in recent history, with 6,451 homicide victims, including several journalists.
“When I leave my house, I look all around to be sure there is no one around me.” Gonzalo Marroquín, vice president of the Inter-American Press Association and director of the Guatemalan daily newspaper Prensa Libre, said that the situation had become so dangerous that journalism in Guatemala was on the way to extinction.