Britain’s Foreign Office reacted with shock and sadness at the news of the fatal shooting of a British journalist in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Wednesday.
Kate Peyton, a 39-year-old British Broadcasting Corporation producer based in Johannesburg, died while undergoing surgery at the Medina hospital after she was gunned down by unknown attackers outside a hotel, just hours after arriving in the city.
”We were shocked and saddened to hear of the death of Kate Peyton, and would like to send our condolences to her friends and family from all at the Foreign Office who knew her,” a spokesperson for the foreign office said.
”She had travelled with the Foreign Secretary [Jack Straw] abroad and was well known to our media staff wherever she went. She will be greatly missed,” the spokesperson told the domestic news agency the Press Association.
Peyton was in Mogadishu to join foreign reporters covering a fact-finding visit to the capital by a team of Somali lawmakers assessing conditions there for the relocation from exile of the country’s transitional government. – Sapa-AFP