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| Sunday, 30 June 2002 |
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Suspected paramilitaries kill Colombian journalist BOGOTA, Colombia, June 28 (Reuters) - Suspected right-wing gunmen on Friday forced a Colombian radio reporter from his car and shot him dead as his relatives watched, colleagues and police said. Efrain Alberto Varela, 54, was the fourth local journalist killed in Colombia this year. Varela, who had received death threats from outlawed paramilitaries fighting leftist rebels in Colombia's 38-year-old war, was killed in a rural road in the oil-rich province of Arauca, 280 miles (450 km) northeast of the capital Bogota. "He was traveling in his car with two relatives when some men stopped the car, forced him out and shot him several times," a colleague who worked with Varela at local Radio Meridiano 70 told Reuters by telephone. Colombia, torn by a war that kills thousands every year, is one of the most dangerous places in the world to work as a journalist, according to media watch groups. Most of the killings of journalists are carried out in the lawless countryside by illegal armed groups on the right and left who accuse reporters of taking sides in the conflict. In 2001, 10 Colombian journalists were killed by suspected illegal gunmen. Arauca, a cattle and savanna province bordering Venezuela, is the scene of a fierce territorial battle between leftist rebels and paramilitaries for control of drug crops. |
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