CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Gunmen killed a man believed to be a journalist and wounded his companion in the Mexican border city of Juarez, police said.

The victims were traveling in an SUV when the gunmen opened fire on them, police said, adding that the vehicle bore a decal from Enfoque del Sol, a magazine in Chihuahua state.

Relatives identified the man killed in the attack as Ernesto Montañez Valdivia.

The wounded man, who has not been identified, was taken to a hospital in serious condition.

Officials have not said whether or not Montañez Valdivia was a journalist.

Mexico, where more than four dozen members of the press, including five this year, have been killed since 2000, is considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists.

Ciudad Juarez, which is across the border from El Paso, Texas, has been plagued by drug-related violence in recent years.

In 2008, Juarez earned the dubious distinction of being Mexico’s most violent city, living through days when dozens of people were murdered in the span of a few hours, and armed groups committed acts of violence in public areas that terrorized residents.

The border city, home to the Juarez drug cartel, ended 2008 with a total of 1,605 people murdered, according to press tallies, including 77 federal, state and municipal police officers.

From January to mid-June of this year, an average of four people per day were murdered in Ciudad Juarez, with 60 percent of the killings linked to organized crime, the Chihuahua AG’s office said.

The wave of violence in Juarez, where the murder total has already topped 1,000 for the year, has not been contained by the more than 8,000 soldiers deployed in the border city under an operation launched in March 2008.

Armed groups linked to Mexico’s drug cartels murdered around 1,500 people in 2006 and 2,700 people in 2007, with the 2008 death toll soaring to more than 6,000.

Nearly 3,600 people have died so far this year, according to a tally kept by Mexico City daily El Universal.

Since taking office in December 2006, President Felipe Calderon has deployed more than 45,000 soldiers and 20,000 federal police officers across Mexico in an attempt to crush the cartels. EFE