Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the murder of Mateo Pérez Rueda, director of the digital outlet El Confidente, based in Yarumal, a municipality in the northern department of Antioquia. The journalist was last seen on 5 May 2026, when he travelled to a rural area of the municipality Briceño to report in a territory marked by armed conflict. On 8 May, a joint humanitarian mission by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Ombudsman’s Office of Colombia recovered the journalist’s body, which President Gustavo Petro confirmed on his X account.
Mateo Pérez Rueda, 24, headed El Confidente, a local media outlet in Yarumal that he launched in 2021 and which counts 4,400 Facebook followers. Colleagues remember him as a young man deeply connected to the cultural life of his city, active in the literary workshop “El sueño del pino,” present at poetry festivals and committed to reporting from places where almost no one else was covering events.
According to RSF information, Mateo Pérez Rueda travelled to Briceño to report on recent clashes between the Colombian Army and the 36th Front, an armed group made up of dissidents from the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla. His disappearance became public on 6 May. The next day, an official statement from the Ombudsman’s office about his case confirmed that he had gone to the municipality’s rural area to report on the conflict and that humanitarian aid was needed to establish his whereabouts and give his family answers. The recovery of his body was only possible through a humanitarian mission, highlighting how extremely difficult it is to circulate in the territory.
“RSF condemns the killing of Mateo Pérez Rueda and expresses its solidarity with his family, his colleagues and the community of Yarumal. This crime cannot be treated as just another violent episode. A journalist went out to verify facts and report the news, and he disappeared and was murdered. Killing a reporter for doing their job imposes silence on entire territories and deprives communities of their right to be informed. Journalists are civilians and their work must be respected at all times by all parties to the conflict. Keeping the public informed can never become grounds for disappearance or death. RSF calls on the Colombian authorities to swiftly clarify the circumstances of the journalist’s murder, prosecute those responsible and ensure justice for his family. What happened in Briceño confirms that wherever armed groups take control, local journalism is vulnerable and communities become increasingly isolated from the news they need to understand what is happening in their own territory.
Briceño is experiencing a severe humanitarian and security crisis. The dispute between armed groups has led to homicides, threats, confinement, forced displacement, and restrictions on the civilian population’s ability to move around the area. The disappearance and subsequent murder of Mateo Pérez Rueda show the extent to which these armed groups close the space for reporting, threaten those who attempt to do so, push entire communities into silence and weaken their right to know what is happening around them.
