Director of Somali radio station shot dead: witnesses

[Taleexi]

AFP – 3 mins 18 secs ago

 

Gunmen on Saturday shot dead the director of a major Somali radio station in front of his home in Mogadishu, colleagues

and witnesses said. Hassan Osman, who headed Radio Shabele, was stopped by two men as he was entering his gate who then shot him several times, said Mohamed Moalim, a relative who stayed in the area.

"We don't know who they are but the shot him mercilessly in the head and shoulders", he said.

 

Colleague Adan Yare confirmed the attack. "Two men armed with pistols shot the director several times and he died in the spot," he said.

 

Radio Shabele interrupted its programmes to broadcast several verses from the Koran as an expression of mourning for Osman. Somalia, which has been devastated by 20 years of civil war, is considered one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. Media rights campaigners Reporters Without Borders (Reporteurs Sans Frontieres, RSF), reported in December that 25 journalists had been killed there since 2007.

 

In December a man wearing military uniform shot dead a journalist working for a local television station in a Mogadishu street. Two months earlier, a Malaysian cameraman was killed in the city, the site of fierce fighting between the Islamist Shebab fighters and the weak transitional government backed by African Union peacekeepers.

[Somalina]

AUN.

[Taleexi]

Amen.

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

allah ha u naxariisto marxuumka

[Somalia]

So sad. May God have mercy on his soul