Killed by a suicide bomber
On 20 September two unidentified men entered “The Village” café in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu at around 5:30 p.m. and detonated bombs, killing a total of 14 people and injuring 20, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports.

Those killed included Abdisatar Dahir Sabriye and Liban Ali Nuur from Radio Muqdisho/TV, and Abdirahmaan Yasiin, the Director of VOD Radio Xama. Somalia National TV reporter Mohamed Hussein, along with three reporters for Radio Kulmiye –Abdullahi Suldan, Abdirisaq Mohamed, and Nour Mohamed Ali – was wounded. The injured journalists sought treatment at local hospitals.

The three journalists killed on 20 September were buried in different cemeteries in the city due to security concerns.

The attack took place across the street from the National Theatre, where a bomb blast in April wounded at least 10 journalists, including two of the nation’s top sports officials.

Ali Mohamud Rage, a spokesman for the militant insurgent group Al-Shabaab, said the bombing was carried out by supporters of the group. Al-Shabaab also claimed responsibility for the attack in April.

Another journalist killed the next morning

The next day in the morning unidentified gunmen killed veteran Somali journalist Hassan Yusuf Absuge in Mogadishu shortly after he had reported on the explosion that killed 14 people including three of his colleagues.

The assailants shot Hassan three times in the head near a high school in Yaqshid district, but fled the scene before the police arrived, informed CPJ.

Hassan, a reporter and producer for the private Radio Maanta, had worked as a journalist since 1989 and contributed to Radio Mogadishu and GBC broadcasters.

Reporters Without Borders cited a Mogadishu-based journalist interviewed by Agence France-Presse: “This is a disaster, another journalist shot dead while we were burying three of our colleagues killed in the suicide attack yesterday. It is a campaign to cleanse the free press”.

4 journalists killed in two days, 13 in nine months

Somalia remains the most dangerous country in Africa to practice journalism as 13 reporters have already been killed since the beginning of 2012. This year is the worst year for journalists in Somalia.

Last month two Mogadishu-based journalists were shot in barbaric way by gunmen. One more journalist narrowly survived an attack on 7 July, when two individuals shot him in the stomach and leg at close range. He was evacuated to the Kenyan capital of Nairobi for treatment.

The killings are also a crime against freedom of expression in the country. An entire profession is in the process of being wiped out with nothing being done to protect it.

International free speech organisations, including London-based Article 19, urged the law enforcement authorities to launch a prompt and effective investigation into the 20 September incident and bring those responsible to justice.

August saw two journalists and producer killed

On 1 August Abdi Jeylani Malaq, right, a TV actor, comedian and producer also known as Marshale, was fatally shot in cold blood by unidentified gunmen as he was about to enter his home in the Mogadishu district of Waberi at around 7 p.m.

He was taken with gunshot injuries to the head and chest to the capital’s Madina hospital, where he died. The method of operation used in the killing and the threats he had previously received suggests that it was the work of the Islamist militia Al-Shabaab.

On 11 August Yusuf Ali Osman, a former journalist working for the federal transitional government’s ministry of information, posts and telecommunications, was also killed in Mogadishu. Known as “Farey”, he was gunned down in the district of Dharkenley. The onetime director of Radio Mogadishu, he was in charge of media affairs at the ministry.

On 12 August a young journalist Mohamud Ali Keyre, below, also known as “Buneyste”, was killed by a gunshot in Mogadishu. Keyre was hit in the head by a bullet. He was taken to Mogadishu’s Madina hospital where doctors pronounced him dead.

Aged 23, Keyre worked as a freelancer for the Horyaalmedia.com news website. He used to work for Voice of Democracy, a Mogadishu-based radio station, until he fled to Kenya after getting death threats. Later he returned after deciding that the security situation had improved in the Somali capital.

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