SAN SALVADOR (AFP) - A Salvadoran journalist reported missing on Sunday (April 15) has been found dead on the side of a road, according to media reports.

According to media reports, the body of Karla Turcios, 33, was found on a highway on the outskirts of Santa Rosa Guachipilin, 100 kilometres north-east of San Salvador.

"Journalist Karla Turcios was murdered," the newspaper La Prensa Grafica - a sister title of El Economista magazine, where the mother-of-one worked - tweeted.

A source from the Salvadoran public prosecutor's office told AFP the body of an apparently strangled woman was found on a highway in the Santa Rosa Guachipilin area - but there were no identifying documents available and the body was transferred for forensic analysis.

La Prensa Grafica said Ms Turcios' husband identified her body by her clothes and a scar.

"We sympathise with your family in these hard times," the newspaper wrote on Twitter, sharing a photograph of Ms Turcios.

Ms Turcios had been reported as missing by her family and the newspaper earlier on Sunday.