Two Somali broadcast journalists were killed on Saturday in the capital, Mogadishu, where murder and armed attacks have become almost daily events, hours after four officials were shot dead.
Ali Iman Sharmarke, the head of ocal private media group Horn Afrik, which has two radio stations and a television channel, and one of his staff, Mahad Ahmed Elmi, were killed in separate incidents.
Sharmake, who had dual Somali and Canadian nationality, was targeted by a roadside bomb as he was returning in his car from Elmi’s funeral.
Elmi had been shot dead by two gunmen on his way to work, colleagues said.
“It’s terrible news … He was shot several times and he died instantly,” Hasan Kafi Qoyste, one of his colleagues at the radio station, said.
Sharmake’s deputy, Said Tahlil, said his boss died after being hit in the head by shrapnel. Another journalist who was with him in his car wounded.
On Friday night four Somali officials were attacked in the Suqba’ad district in northern Mogadishu.
Local resident, Muktar Mohamed, said the four were just walking along when two men armed with pistols opened fire. Three died on the spot and the fourth in hospital.
The four victims had recently been appointed by the Somali government to the local administration of the village of El-Baraf, 130km north of Mogadishu, police officer Nur Adan Madey said.
Meanwhile, a journalist with one of Mogadishu’s main radio stations, Shabelle, who was arrested Friday, was still in custody early Saturday, according to the station’s assistant director Jafar Kukay.
The journalist was arrested during a raid on the station by security forces, who ordered it off the air and detained seven members of staff. Kukar said they accused the radio station of putting out an inaccurate report on violence in Mogadishu the day before.
All the other employees have since been released and the radio has resumed its programmes.
It was the third time since January that a Mogadishu radio station was silenced by the authorities.
Somalia, which is home to about 10-million people, has been plagued by instability that has defied more than a dozen peace initiatives since the 1991 overthrow of former dictator Siad Barre. — AFP