DOCUMENTARY: “Silenced Zones” – Displaced Journalists in Mexico (ENG)

This new video documentary investigates the situation of journalists who are forced into internal displacement as a consequence of their reporting and press work in Mexico

Published on February 21, 2022

Jesús Medina Aguilar | lanid, IDPs, Violence, Arts, Researcher, Americas (inc Caribbean), Community-based organisations

México. Periodistas Desplazados México. 2022 © Jesús Medina Aguilar

SEE THE DOCUMENTARY HERE: https://youtu.be/u_5EETVNXOg (in Spanish)

Mexico is the most dangerous country in the world for journalists. Journalists who are threatened due to their reporting or investigative work have to leave their homes to save their lives and those of their families. They are displaced journalists. This mini-documentary presents the perspective of the journalists who are victims of forced internal displacement that is driven by violence derived from their work as reporters. The documentary also shares analysis of their situation by prestigious organizations concerned with freedom of expression.

Jesús Medina Aguilar is a graduate of the Autonomous University of Guerrero in Communication Sciences. He has worked as a reporter for community radio stations and local media, covering issues of security, justice, social movements and public complaints. He started in local media in the State of Morelos, where he was the coordinator of the Community Radio Station Radio Tlahtoa 102.7FM until September 29, 2017. After receiving a death threat, he was the victim of an attack which has left him internally displaced with his family, waiting to return home one day.

In Mexico City, he joined a group of journalists in the same situation of internal forced displacement, all victims of violence in the country. Together they created different communication media. Later he worked as a reporter for media outlets, such as Zócalo magazine, Radio la 91.1 FM and currently Radio Tlatoani in Tlayacapan Morelos joined to RedNodos. Jointly with other colleagues, he founded the Association of Displaced Journalists Mexico, of which he is the president. In this association the members provide support to other victims of aggression, defend the human rights of journalists and other victims of internal forced displacement.

This documentary was produced by the author during his Summer Fellowship on Internal Displacement at the Internal Displacement Research Programme at the Refugee Law Initiative. The Fellowship was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, on behalf of the UKRI Global Challenge Research Fund, as part of the funded project “Interdisciplinary Network on Internal Displacement, Conflict and Protection” (AH/T005351/1).

HOW TO CONTRIBUTE

Researching Internal Displacement publishes engaging and insightful short pieces of writing, artistic and research outputs, policy briefings and think pieces on internal displacement.

We welcome contributions from academics, practitioners, researchers, officials, artists, poets, writers, musicians, dancers, postgraduate students and people affected by internal displacement.

Contact the Editorial Team

How to Contribute

More than Just Housing: Human-rights-based Planned Relocation Lessons from El Bosque, Mexico

By Silvia Cantú Bautista, María Maldonado Antillón, Daniela Chapuz Osorio, Juan Manuel Orozco Moreno | Oct 1, 2026

This first article in RID's miniseries, Towards Dignified Climate Relocation: Community Perspectives from around the Globe, is a moving account of the challenges faced by community members of El Bosque, Tabasco, Mexico, who began to plan relocation in 2022 due to severe coastal erosion. Written by members of two organisations that have advocated for the community, the article recounts the successful legal and communications campaign that persuaded the Government of Mexico to support relocation, as well as the challenges faced during a planned relocation process that did not fully prioritise a participatory, rights-based approach. The article calls on the Mexican government to remedy the harms to the community while ensuring better future programming through policy changes. It also offers vital lessons for governments, communities and development actors around the globe on community participation, transparent and constant communication, focus on economic and non-economic loss and damage and the need for continuous access to livelihoods, education and health services.

Internally displaced in Russia: Reluctantly recognised but still unwanted

By Ekaterina Pesegova | Sep 24, 2026

As the Russian war on Ukraine grinds on and the impacts of Ukraine’s resistance and counterattack spread inland in Russia, the conflict is taking its toll not only on Ukrainians but on Russian civilians, in particular, the large but underreported internally displaced population of Russians forced to flee their homes by the conflict. Building on an earlier piece written by the author for RID, this new research article examines the true extent of internal displacement in Russia and the growing challenges of IDPs, with particular focus on Belgorod, Bryansk, and Kursk, three of the most impacted regions. The article spotlights the inadequacy of official efforts to protect and compensate people displaced by the conflict, reflecting both the absence of the category of "internally displaced persons" in Russian law and Russia's apparent reticence to formally acknowledge the extent of displacement and, thereby, its responsibility toward internally displaced persons. This reticence, the article argues, is linked to increasingly dire national finances, depleted by the cost of the war and international economic sanctions. More fundamentally, however, it reflects the Russian government's unwillingness to acknowledge, even indirectly, that the "special military operation", now in its fifty-sixth month, has not gone according to plan.

Durable Solutions Under Climate Stress: Why Recurrent Drought Continues to Undermine Displacement Solutions in the Horn of Africa

By Guled Ali | Sep 17, 2026

This insightful article examines durable solutions programming to conflict and climate-related displacement in the Horn of Africa. Despite growing investments in durable solutions by development actors, the stated programmatic goals of restoring self-reliance, dignity and stability to displacement-affected communities remain elusive. Instead, climatic stressors, especially drought, regularly undermine the stability that solutions programming is intended to deliver. The blog calls for a fundamental shift in how durable solutions are understood in the context of climate change. Experience in the Horn of Africa demonstrates that durable solutions must be positioned not as a fixed end-state achieved once people have returned home or resettled elsewhere and pre-displacement conditions have been restored, but as an ongoing adaptive process that enables people and communities to build the capacities needed to adapt to future environmental shocks. Otherwise, the author argues, communities that appear to be progressing toward self-reliance are likely to experience re-displacement, protracted displacement and other setbacks as subsequent climate shocks erode recovery gains.