This month, another journalist was attacked in Mexico

A car carrying armed assailants tried to cut off Jose Ignacio Santiago's vehicle on a rural highway in the southern state of Oaxaca.

Journalists gather in Juárez to protest killings of Mexican colleagues | Photo Credits: El Paso Matters, Corrie Boudreaux.

He was able to escape because of two bodyguards assigned to him by the government as part of a program to protect journalists. As a result of his abduction by a gang in 2017, Santiago was assigned a guards' protection.

The attack comes one day after press groups held more than a dozen protests throughout Mexico Tuesday in response to the death of three journalists since January 1. In almost 40 locations around the country, journalists took to the streets to protest the shootings - including in cities where protesting could draw the attention of organized crime groups. Their demand was for the Mexican government, which provides protection mechanisms for journalists at the federal and state levels, to do more to ensure security for journalists in danger.

In less than a month, Maldonado became the third journalist killed, after José Luis Gamboa Arenas was stabbed in Veracruz on January 10 and Alfonso Margarito Martínez Esquivel was shot in Tijuana on January 17. A fourth journalist, Jaime Vargas, is hospitalized after attackers broke into his home and stabbed him while he was asleep next to his wife, according to local news reports.

A government system that is meant to protect journalists and human rights defenders has not succeeded in solving more than 90% of cases involving murder.

For journalists, Mexico continues to be the most dangerous place in the Western Hemisphere. Since December 2018, 52 journalists or media workers have been killed in Mexico. Seven of the 52 killed were enrolled in the protection program.

* This article contains information sourced from CPJ and VOA.