Miroslava Breach Velducea

Miroslava Breach Velducea (7 August 1962 – 23 March 2017) was a Mexican investigative journalist for La Jornada and Norte de Juárez in Chihuahua City, Mexico known for her reporting on human rights violations, drug trafficking, and government corruption. She was murdered on 23 March 2017 as she was leaving her home.

At the time of her death, Breach was a correspondent for La Jornada, a collaborator for El Norte de Chihuahua newspaper, and the editorial director of El Norte de Ciudad Juárez. She was a single mother of 2 children. Breach's father died when she was young, and she was raised by her siblings and single mother. After high school, she moved to La Paz, Baja California Sur and enrolled at the Autonomous University of Baja California Sur. She first studied biological sciences for two years, after which she transferred to the Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration. She graduated in 1987. El Diario de Chihuahua, El Norte de Ciudad Juárez, and then became a correspondent for the newspaper La Jornada in May 1997.

On 4 March 2016, La Jornada published a piece by Breach that exposed that cartel members had infiltrated mayoral candidate lists for the Institutional Revolutionary and National Action parties in rural, mountainous drug corridors of Chihuahua.

Breach investigated issues such as human rights violations and illegal logging in Rarámuri communities in the Sierra Tarahumara region;

Hours after the murder, César Augusto Peniche Espejel, head of the State Prosecutor's Office (FGE), said that Breach had "not requested protection as there was no clear evidence of her being threatened", despite evidence to the contrary. Governor Javier Corral Jurado and his private secretary Francisco Muñoz visited Breach's children to comfort them and declared a three-day mourning period for her. Breach's body was taken to the Forensic Medical Service of Ciudad Juárez for autopsy.

On 11 October 2017, Corral confirmed information that had leaked that day to the press by declaring that the police investigation into Breach's murder had determined that the criminal organization "Los Salazares", a division of Gente Nueva, an armed wing of the Sinaloa Cartel, had masterminded the killings. The motive for the killing was likely revenge for Breach's exposing of then-Chínipas de Almada mayoral candidate Juan Miguel Salazar's alleged connections to the Sinaloa Cartel via La Jornada, causing him to lose the election to another cartel candidate. Breach reported that following the publication of this story, she began to receive death threats. Also on 11 October, Breach's sister Rosa María Breach Velducea appeared in public on the six-month anniversary of the assassination to condemn the killing.

El Heraldo de Chihuahua reported the shooter to be the nephew of Crispín and Adán Salazar, acting on the orders of his uncle, for his role in Breach's murder, and the prosecutors established that he oversaw the murder, committed by Ramón Andrés Zavala Corral, who was killed himself near Chínipas on 19 December. It is believed that Moreno Ochoa had planned on killing Breach as a birthday gift for Adán Salazar Zamorano, leader of Los Salazares.

In April 2018, the judicial branch of the State of Chihuahua closed their investigation and gave the Attorney General the case file. It was decided that Moreno Ochoa would be tried in Federal court. In August 2020, he was sentenced to 50 years in prison.

Context Breach's murder came at a time of intense dissatisfaction by the people of Chihuahua with the PAN government of the State of Chihuahua. Chihuahuans, who believed that César Duarte Jáquez had not been sufficiently punished and were upset that Governor Corral had been on vacation in Mazatlán only two days before, began to demand justice for Breach and the many other journalists who had been killed in Chihuahua. At Corral's 23 March 2017 press conference, the assembled press were informed that the investigation would primarily use the work of Breach According to the NGO Article 19, since the start of Peña Nieto's government in December 2012, through 19 March 2017, 106 Mexican journalists had been killed.

Impact Bowí bus station 'Justice' in Chihuahua City renamed 'Miroslava Breach', on March 23, 2019, 2 years after her femicide . The Miroslava Breach Award was established in 2017 by several educational institutions, as well as journals and newspapers, in Breach's honor for Latin American or Caribbean journalists who publish about violence and education or journalism.

In Chihuahua City, friends and relatives of Breach as well as other journalists and their friends and family are to gather to demand justice for Breach, beginning at 07:00 CST 22 March 2018 at the Quinta Gameros. The next day, the one-year anniversary of Breach's murder, they will reconvene at Hidalgo Plaza's Cruz de Clavos in front of the Palace of the State Governor, and then finish on the 24th with a research seminar at the Autonomous University of Chihuahua named in honor of Breach.

Miroslava's work has been continued by Forbidden Stories.