Ecuadorian journalist Tomás Beltrán was shot dead on a Sunday night while manoeuvring his car into his garage, becoming the latest Ecuador journalist killed as press freedom groups warn that reporting in the country is increasingly dangerous. Beltrán ran a Facebook page carrying news about Calceta, a small city in the province of Manabí.

A killing with few answers

Details of the attack remain scarce. According to the report, little was known about the killers except that they were armed and fled the scene, and both the police and the public prosecutor's office have said little. It is unclear whether the crime was connected to Beltrán's work, though he had previously reported allegations of corruption involving local authorities.

A flashpoint province

Manabí's Pacific coastline has made it a key flashpoint in the gang warfare over drug trafficking routes. While Ecuador does not produce cocaine like neighbouring Colombia and Peru, the report notes it has become a major trafficking hub, particularly through the Pacific.

Warnings from press freedom groups

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said Beltrán had warned the organisation months earlier that he feared for his safety because of the threats directed at him.

• •Artur Romeu, RSF's Latin America director, said Beltrán had raised those threats with the group some months before the killing.
• •Romeu said efforts were made to get Beltrán to safety, and he had been placed in a protection programme run by the public prosecutor's office; whether it was still in place when he was killed is unknown.
• •Six journalists were killed in Ecuador last year alone.
• •The Fundación Periodistas Sin Cadenas (FPSC) reported that at least 19 journalists have had to go into exile since gang violence exploded in 2023.
• •Journalists have received death threats with photographs of their homes and details of their routines and families.

RSF, according to Romeu, has called on the public prosecutor's office to investigate as a priority whether there is a link to his journalistic work, identify any possible masterminds and protect his family and colleagues.

Silencing on the coast

María Fernanda Almeida, a project coordinator at FPSC, warned that "Practising journalism in Ecuador is now an extremely high-risk job", and said all of last year's killings of journalists remain completely unpunished.

The violence, she said, has bred self-censorship: at least in the coastal provinces, colleagues no longer want to report on violence. She also criticised the response of far-right president Daniel Noboa, whose "iron-fist" approach relies on repeated states of emergency and an expanded role for the armed forces - a policy widely criticised by human rights groups.

The report documents how, while covering military operations, reporters have had their phones confiscated, a search warrant was executed at a reporter's home, and a journalist was threatened by soldiers for filming them stopping university students.

There have also been several reports that Noboa, one of US president Donald Trump's key allies in Latin America, has pressured media organisations to dismiss journalists critical of him. Columnist Roberto Aguilar said he was fired from the newspaper Diario Expreso after the government reportedly threatened private advertisers with audits if they kept advertising with the outlet. Noboa's administration did not respond to requests for comment.

RSF has urged the public prosecutor's office to establish whether the killing is tied to Beltrán's journalism, find any possible masterminds and safeguard his family and colleagues; the Noboa administration has so far given no comment.