Provincial woman journalist gunned down while visiting Mogadishu
26 March 2013
SOMALIA
Provincial woman journalist gunned down while visiting Mogadishu
Reporters Without Borders is saddened to learn that a young woman journalist, Rahmo Abdulkadir, was gunned down on a Mogadishu street two days ago. Shot five times, she died on the spot.
She is the second woman journalist to have been killed in the past eight years, following visiting BBC reporter Kate Peyton who was gunned down in Mogadishu in 2005.
“We offer our heart-felt condolences to Abdulkadir’s family,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Noting the recent arrest of three suspects in the murders of two other journalists, Mohamed Mohamud Turyare and Abdihared Osman Adan (http://en.rsf.org/somalia-radio-shabelle-journalist-badly-22-10-2012,43565.html), we urge the authorities to investigate this latest murder with the same diligence.
“The Somali police and judicial authorities would thereby demonstrate that they are finally determined to end the vicious cycle of impunity for crimes of violence against media personnel (http://en.rsf.org/somalia-impunity-war-on-somalia-s-23-11-2012,43711.html).”
Abdulkadir worked as a producer and technician for Radio Abudwaq, a radio station based in the centre of the country, and had been visiting Mogadishu for personal reasons when she was gunned down on 23 March. She was clearly the target of the gunmen who shot her, but the motive is so far unknown.
Mohamed Ali Nuxurkey, a 29-year-old journalist working for privately-owned Radio Mustaqbal, was meanwhile one of the victims of car-bomb targeting a senior Somali official that killed at least 10 people and injured around 20 others in Mogadishu on 18 March.
Nuxurkey died of his injuries in the capital’s Madina Hospital a few hours after the explosion. Abdirashid Nur Ibrahim, another journalist with the same radio station, was also wounded by the blast and had to be hospitalized, but his injuries were not life-threatening.
A total of 18 journalists were killed in Somali last year, the deadliest year for media personnel in the country’s history. Abdihared Osman Adan, a Shabelle Media Network radio and TV presenter, was the first journalist to be killed in connection with his work in 2013 (http://en.rsf.org/somalia-journalist-gunned-down-in-18-01-2013,43928.html).
Somali is ranked 175th out of 179 countries in the 2013 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index (http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2013,1054.html).