A GROUP of Nobel laureates have taken out an advert in a Mexican newspaper calling for an end to attacks on journalists in the country.

The seven writers and other international authors took out the ad in El Universal.

The statement by the PEN International writers group – which claims 67 journalists have been killed in Mexico by drug cartels since 2000 – was signed by laureates JM Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Toni Morrison, Orhan Pamuk, Wole Soyinka, Mario Vargas Llosa and Derek Walcott.