Reporter and political activist Medardo Flores was killed last Thursday in the northern city of Puerto Cortés, in Honduras, AFP reported. He was attacked in his car by at least two gunmen while he was driving back to his ranch and was struck by nine bullets, the local press reported.

According to the International Press Institute’s Death Watch, Flores is the fifth journalist killed in Honduras this year, and the fifteenth since the beginning of 2010. His assassination makes Latin America the deadliest region in the world for journalists so far in 2011, with at least 26 killings so far this year.

Flores was a member of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), a group that supports former president Manuel Zelaya, who was deposed through a coup in June 2009. Although Flores was a farmer, he graduated last year from a communications institute, EFE reported.

Arnulfo Aguilar, director of radio Uno, told the local press that Flores had been in exile during the 1980s “to escape from persecution by the repressive forces of the State”.