Mexico City, Mexico—An investigation into a fire at a Mexican detention center that killed 40 migrants won a prize on Tuesday that honors two journalists murdered in the country, one of the world’s deadliest for the press.
Rocio Gallegos, Blanca Carmona and Gabriela Minjares, co-founders of the independent news site La Verdad (The Truth), won the Breach-Valdez award for human rights journalism for their report about the March 2023 tragedy in the border city of Ciudad Juarez.
The investigation uncovered closed-circuit video footage showing that guards at the detention center did nothing to help migrants escape after they set fire to mattresses to protest their conditions.
An agent from the National Migration Institute is heard saying: “We’re not going to open (the cell door) for them.”
Images also showed that the guards were in possession of the door keys, contrary to the official version.
The eight-month investigation was a collaboration between La Verdad, El Paso Matters, an independent media outlet based in Texas across the border from Ciudad Juarez, and Lighthouse Reports, a collaborative journalism organization.
“We needed a space because there is very tight media control in Ciudad Juarez,” Gallegos said of the three women’s decision to start their own website.
Recognition like the Breach-Valdez award allows journalists to “raise our voices,” Minjares said.
Journalist Alberto Pradilla and photographer Paul Ramirez won the category of child and adolescent rights for a report for the N+ news channel about unaccompanied child migrants deported by Mexico.
Launched in 2018, the prize honors journalists who risk their lives to cover human rights abuses in Mexico, following in the footsteps of Javier Valdez and Miroslava Breach who were murdered in 2017.
Long-time AFP contributor Valdez, 50, was a prominent chronicler of Mexico’s deadly drug wars while Breach, a 54-year-old newspaper correspondent, was known for her hard-hitting reports on links between politicians and organized crime.
Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to work as a journalist, with more than 150 members of the media murdered there since 2000, according to Reporters Without Borders.
