INTERNATIONAL: Mexican journalists on Tuesday,January 25), have started nationwide protests to denounce the recent murders of three reporters, demanding an end to impunity that has often characterized the killings of their colleagues.

The protests follow the murder of seasoned journalist Lourdes Maldonado on Sunday,January 23, some three years after she has raised the issue of killings with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and has said she feared for her life.

A vigil in their memory was held outside Mexico's Interior Ministry's office in Mexico City, where portraits of murdered journalists and signs demanding justice gleamed against candle light.

Mexico is one of the world's most dangerous countries for journalists, and some 145 have been killed between 2000-2021, according to Article 19, an advocacy group.

Mexican journalist networks have voted to stage the gatherings, which will coincide with online protest campaigns.

Maldonado's murder in the northern border city of Tijuana, where she worked for many years, has followed the killings of two other Mexican journalists this month.

Alfonso Margarito Martinez, a seasoned crime reporter working in Tijuana, Baja California, was killed outside his home on January 17 and Jose Luis Gamboa, who directed a news website covering politics and crime, was killed in Veracruz on January 10.

Lopez Obrador, who has been criticized for not doing more to protect reporters, has said his government would investigate and "clear up this crime to prevent further murders of journalists."

Critics say Lopez Obrador has failed to deliver on pledges to reduce violence, combat deeply entrenched organized crime, or reduce impunity. The president says crime and violence are the products of chronic corruption and inequality.

^{PHOTO: MEXICAN JOURNALISTS PROTESTING AGAINST THE KILLING OF COLLEAGUES IN MEXICO / SOUNDBITES FROM MEXICAN JOURNALISTS}