Journalist reported missing in Mexico

Mexico City, Jan 4 (IANS/EFE) A journalist working as a stringer for many newspapers in Mexico's Veracruz state has been reported missing, officials said.

Moises Sanchez Cerezo's whereabouts is not known since Friday, Veracruz Attorney General Luis Angel Bravo Contreras said.

He said he was personally coordinating the search for the missing journalist.

Sanchez Cerezo covered news and posted stories on local corruption and community issues on social networks.

Veracruz Governor Javier Duarte said investigators were trying to determine what happened to the journalist, who he described as a "taxi driver and neighbourhood activist".

"Our priority is to find him and reunite him with his family," Duarte added.

Sanchez Cerezo works as a reporter in Medellin de Bravo city for his weekly La Union, the Cronica de Xalapa newspaper reported.

He is also a community activist in several neighbourhoods, where residents have banded together to fight crime, the newspaper said.

Sanchez Cerezo's relatives contacted several Veracruz and national media outlets via e-mail and reported his disappearance.

The journalist had received "prior threats", relatives said.

Veracruz, Mexico's third most populous state, has been plagued by a turf war between rival drug cartels that has sent the murder rate skyrocketing in the past few years.

--IANS/EFE

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