A journalist who ran an online local news program was shot to death on Monday in southern Mexico, making him the 15th media worker killed so far this year nationwide.

Prosecutors in the southern state of Guerrero said Monday that Fredid Román was gunned down in the state capital, Chilpancingo.

Román’s program, “The Reality of Guerrero,” focused heavily on state-level politics.

Prosecutors did not immediately offer any further details on the killing of Román, who local media said had previously published a newspaper under the same name and was shot inside his vehicle.

Guerrero is a state where drug gangs, armed vigilantes and other groups regularly clash.

While organized crime is often involved in journalist killings, small town officials or politicians with political or criminal motivations are often suspects as well.

Journalists running small news outlets in Mexico’s interior are easy targets.

2022 has been one of the deadliest ever for journalists in Mexico, which is now considered the most dangerous country for reporters outside a war zone.

An independent journalist last week became the 14th journalist killed in Mexico. He was found dead in northern Mexico, killed by a blow to the head, authorities said Aug. 16.

Prosecutors in the border state of Sonora announced earlier that the body of Juan Arjón López had been found in the border city of San Luis Rio Colorado. They said the journalist, who had been reported missing Aug. 9, was identified from the tattoos on his body.

According to the autopsy, López died from “head trauma due to a blunt blow,” the state Public Ministry said in a statement.

The state’s chief prosecutor, Claudia Contreras, said investigators would seek to determine if the killing was related to López’s work as a journalist.

San Luis is across the border from Yuma, Arizona, and has long been known for medical and dentistry offices catering to Americans. But the area has been hit by drug cartel violence in recent years.

In March, volunteer searchers found 11 bodies in clandestine burial pits in a stretch of desert near a garbage dump in San Luis.

At the beginning of August, a journalist was among four people killed inside a beer shop in the central Mexico state of Guanajuato.

Authorities said it was unknown whether that attack was related to the journalist’s work, his role as a representative of local businesses in the planning of an upcoming fair or something else.

While organized crime is often involved in journalist killings, small town officials or politicians with political or criminal motivations are often suspects as well. Journalists running small news outlets in Mexico’s interior are easy targets.

Mexico is considered the most dangerous country for reporters outside a war zone.