A Panamanian photographer was stabbed to death yesterday in a taxi while en route to a shootout in a neighborhood in the nation's capital, Panamanian media reported.

Eliécer Santamaría, of the daily El Siglo, died at 4 a.m. (local time) in Panama City's Santo Tomás Hospital after doctors could not save him.

Santamaría was in the La Porqueriza area of the barrio Pueblo Nuevo, when unidentified assailants stopped him in his tracks, killing the photographer and making a getaway.

The National College of Journalists decried the murder and demanded the authorities carry out an exhaustive investigation to find the killers.