Ecuadorian journalist Tomás Beltrán was shot dead while manoeuvring his car into his garage on Sunday night, a killing that press freedom groups say highlights worsening dangers for reporters in the country.

Beltrán ran a Facebook news page covering Calceta, a small city in Manabí province, according to reporting by The Guardian’s Tiago Rogero. The province’s Pacific coastline has become a flashpoint in gang warfare over drug-trafficking routes.

Police and prosecutors have released little information about the killing. Armed attackers fled the scene, but it remained unclear whether Beltrán was targeted because of his journalism. He had previously reported allegations of corruption involving local authorities.

Artur Romeu, Latin America director for Reporters Without Borders, said Beltrán had contacted the organization months earlier about threats and fears for his safety.

“We took part in efforts to get him to safety,” Romeu said in a statement cited by The Guardian. Beltrán had been placed in a protection programme operated by the public prosecutor’s office, although it was not known whether that protection remained in place when he was killed.

Romeu urged prosecutors to prioritize investigating a possible connection to Beltrán’s work, identify anyone who may have ordered the killing and protect his family and colleagues.

Six journalists were killed in Ecuador last year, The Guardian reported. María Fernanda Almeida, a project coordinator with the civil society organization Fundación Periodistas Sin Cadenas, said all those killings remained unpunished.

The organization also reported that at least 19 journalists had gone into exile since gang violence escalated in 2023. Reporters have received death threats accompanied by photographs of their homes and information about their families and routines.

Almeida said fear was driving self-censorship, with journalists in coastal provinces increasingly unwilling to cover violence.

She also raised concerns about the government’s treatment of the press under President Daniel Noboa, whose response to gang violence has included repeated states of emergency and an expanded military role. The Guardian reported incidents involving confiscated reporters’ phones, a search of a journalist’s home and a reporter threatened by soldiers while filming them stopping university students.

Noboa’s administration did not respond to The Guardian’s requests for comment.

Sources