MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Radio host killed by hitmen in Paraguayan city of PJC

The Acevedo family has been repeatedly targeted by organized crime

Another reporter has been murdered in the Paraguayan city of Pedro Juan Caballero in yet another attack against the local broadcaster Radio Amambay 570, it was reported Tuesday.

Humberto Coronel, 33, became the second victim. He was shot dead in the street by a lone assassin riding a black Yamaha Fayser motorcycle, wearing a dark protective helmet.

Last June 10, Coronel and his colleague Gustavo Manuel Báez Sánchez, 28, had filed a report before local Police saying they had found a threatening note, reportedly in Portuguese.

Coronel thus became the second victim after the 28-year-old Fausto Gabriel Alcaraz, also a host at Radio Amambay 570 AM was killed on May 16, 2014, who took 12 gunshots from two hitmen.

On August 9, 2015, the media outlet's repeater antenna was knocked down, proving the station is a constant target of organized crime. On September 9, 2016, two men got out of a pickup truck and threw grenades at the broadcaster's building injuring host Patricia Ayala and a guest on her show.

The radio station has belonged for 12 years to the family of the deceased former liberal senator Roberto Acevedo and his brother, the mayor of Pedro Juan Caballero, José Carlos Acevedo, who died after being attacked by hired assassins on the afternoon of May 18.

The Embassy of the United States, as well as the Union of Journalists of Paraguay (SPP) and the Human Rights Coordinator of Paraguay (Codehupy) condemned Tuesday's events.