STORY: Yessenia Mollinedo and Sheila Garcia were killed in the municipality of Cosoleacaque, the state attorney general's office said on Twitter. Local media said unidentified gunmen shot the two as they sat in a car.

“There's a pack of dogs against journalists in our country," independent journalist Rodolfo Montes told Reuters at the protest, adding that, "The Mexican state is not providing the guarantees so we can freely do our work here."

Violence against media workers has jumped during President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's administration, according to a report published in April by Article 19, a freedom of expression advocacy group.

The latest killings come four days after veteran journalist Luis Enrique Ramirez was found dead on the side of a highway in the northern state of Sinaloa.

Before Ramirez's death, eight other journalists had been killed this year in Mexico, according to Article 19 data.