A preferred Cameroon radio journalist who had been lacking following what a media rights group known as an abduction has been discovered lifeless, his employer and police stated on Sunday.
Martinez Zogo was managing director of Yaounde-based non-public radio station Amplitude FM and the star host of a well-liked day by day program, Embouteillage (Gridlock).
On the air, the 51-year-old repeatedly tackled instances of corruption, not hesitating to query essential personalities by title. Zogo served a two-month jail sentence for legal defamation in 2020, the Committee to Defend Journalists reported.
He had been lacking since Tuesday.
"I went to Ebogo (15 kilometers north of Yaounde) early this morning the place I noticed and acknowledged the physique of Martinez Zogo. The prosecutor's deputy was current and his spouse was there to establish him," Amplitude FM radio editor in chief Charly Tchouemou advised AFP.
The dying of Zogo was confirmed to AFP by a police supply who spoke on situation of anonymity.
A big crowd gathered as Zogo's physique was taken to the morgue of Yaounde central hospital for an post-mortem, a member of the sufferer's household advised AFP on situation of anonymity.
Social media has been awash with posts following his disappearance with Reporters With out Borders (RSF) condemning "the brutal abduction of a journalist."
In accordance with RSF, Zogo's badly broken automobile was discovered outdoors a police station in a suburb of the Cameroonian capital Yaounde on Tuesday.
"There are a lot of gray areas relating to the circumstances of his brutal abduction," Sadibou Marong, head of the sub-Saharan Africa workplace of RSF, advised AFP.
"The authorities should launch a rigorous, thorough and impartial investigation to determine the complete chain of duty and the circumstances that led to this unhappy occasion," Marong stated.
Cameroon's nationwide journalists' union condemned a "heinous assassination" and urged media employees to put on black on January 25 as an indication of mourning.
"Though Cameroon has one of many richest media landscapes in Africa, it is without doubt one of the continent's most harmful nations for journalists, who function in a hostile and precarious surroundings," RSF says in its Cameroon nation profile.
The Worldwide Press Institute, a Vienna-based press freedom group, urged Cameroonian authorities to "promptly examine the horrific homicide and be certain that these accountable are dropped at justice".
The political opposition was additionally indignant, with Social Democratic Entrance (SDF) deputy Jean-Michel Nintcheu denouncing a "crime which can't go unpunished."
On Sunday, a number of Cameroonian tv channels devoted their applications to Zogo's dying.
Cameroonian-French author Calixthe Beyala stated she was "dejected, saddened" by information of his dying.
"I knew he was lifeless as quickly because it was introduced that he was kidnapped," she advised Data TV.
"We will ask ourselves the query: whose flip is it? Every of us can discover ourselves on this scenario for one thing that we would have stated."
Killings of journalists and different media employees jumped 50% in 2022, with a mean of 1 journalist killed each 4 days, in accordance with current figures launched by the United Nations.
"These journalists have been killed for quite a lot of causes, together with reprisals for reporting on organized crime, armed battle or the rise of extremism, and overlaying delicate topics akin to corruption, environmental crimes, abuse of energy, and protests," UNESCO stated in an announcement.