Photographer for the Ecuadorian El Comercio daily newspaper Paúl Rivas was kidnapped on March 26, 2018 and killed in April by a dissident FARC section called the Oliver Sinisterra Front on the border of Colombia and Ecuador. Rivas, reporter Ortega and their driver Efrain Segarra were reporting a story on rising crime in the northern province of Esmeraldas in Ecuador, on the border of a notorious Colombian coca-producing region, when they were kidnapped by a Marxist rebel group. The group released a video of the three kidnapped men alive on April 3. On Wednesday 11 of April the Oliver Sinisterra Front published a statement saying the kidnapped had been killed, due to Colombia’s and Ecuador’s military operations near the place where the hostages were held. On Friday 13, the President of Ecuador confirmed the death of the two journalists and their driver.