BOGOTÁ, Colombia(AFP)—A 25-year-old Colombian journalist was found dead on Friday in a restive northwestern region where guerrillas, drug traffickers and illegal gold miners are active, President Gustavo Petro said.

Mateo Perez went missing on Tuesday while he was working in a rural part of Antioquia department about five hours’ drive north of Medellin in the run-up to the presidential election on May 31.

His body was found in an area where dissident members of the defunct guerrilla group FARC and drug traffickers from Colombia’s biggest cartel, the Gulf Clan, operate.