Mexico City, Aug 17 (AP) An independent journalist has been found dead in northern Mexico, prosecutors said, amid a spate of 13 killings of reporters and media workers so far this year, the deadliest in recent memory for the profession.

Prosecutors in the northern border state of Sonora said on Tuesday tattoos on a body found in the border city of San Luis Rio Colorado matched those of journalist Juan Arjón López. But they did not immediately say whether there were signs he had been slain.

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San Luis is across the border from Yuma, Arizona, and has long been known for medical and dentistry offices catering to Americans. But the area has been hit by drug cartel violence in recent years.

In March, volunteer searchers found 11 bodies in clandestine burial pits in a stretch of desert near a garbage dump in San Luis.

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At the beginning of August, a journalist was among four people killed inside a beer shop in the central Mexico state of Guanajuato.

Authorities said it was unknown whether that attack was related to the journalist's work, his role as representative of local businesses in the planning of an upcoming fair or something else.

While organized crime is often involved in journalist killings, small town officials or politicians with political or criminal motivations are often suspects as well. Journalists running small news outlets in Mexico's interior are easy targets.

Mexico is considered the most dangerous country for reporters outside a war zone. (AP)

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