Unknown gunmen kill Somali journalist in Mogadishu

Unidentified gunmen have killed yet another journalist in the Somali capital city of Mogadishu, as acts of murder persist against members of the media in the conflict-ridden African country.

Sagal Salad Osman, a presenter and producer for the state-run Radio Mogadishu station, was gunned down outside a university in Mogadishu’s northwestern neighborhood of Hodan. The assailants managed to flee the scene after the shooting, her colleagues said.

“Three men armed with pistols killed (her)... We heard gunfire and we rushed to the scene, the gunmen had already escaped,” Major Nur Ali, a police officer, said.

“She was rushed to hospital but she died on the way. They killed her near a college campus where she studied. We believe al-Shabab is behind her killing,” he added, referring to the Takfiri militant group active in Somalia.

Ali Abdulkadir, who works at the Muqdisho radio station, said, “We are very much devastated about the news of her death and we don’t know why she was killed.”

Last December, Hindiyo Haji Mohamed, a journalist for Radio Mogadishu and Somali National TV networks, sustained grave injuries when a bomb planted inside her car went off in Mogadishu. She later died of her injuries. Two men convicted of the act of terror were executed in April.

Mohamed’s husband, Liban Ali Nur, a journalist who also worked for national television, had been killed in a bomb attack in September 2012. The Takfiri al-Shabab terrorist group claimed responsibility for the bombing.

In late January 2012, two men armed with pistols stopped Hassan Osman Abdi, the managing director of private Radio Shabelle, as he was heading home from work. The gunmen then shot him several times in the head and shoulders. He died on the spot.

Somali security officials blamed the al-Shabab militant group for the terrorist attack.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 45 journalists have been murdered in Somalia since 2007.

Reporters Without Borders ranked Somalia 172 out of 180 countries on its 2015 press freedom index.

Somalia has been the scene of militancy by al-Shabab since 2006. The Takfiri terrorist group has been pushed out of Mogadishu and other major cities by government forces and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which is largely made up of troops from Ethiopia, Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti, Sierra Leone and Kenya.

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