We issued the following statement in response to the killing of Somali reporter Hassan Mayow Hassan, who was shot dead today in Afgoye, a town 18 miles (30 km) south of the capital Mogadishu. Hassan, a veteran correspondent for Radio Shabelle, was killed by unidentified gunmen while covering a conflict between two militia groups, according to local reports…
“The Committee to Protect Journalists sends its deepest condolences to the family of Hassan and his colleagues at Radio Shabelle,” CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, Tom Rhodes, said today. “The new year has not started well in Somalia. Hassan is the second Radio Shabelle journalist to be killed and the station operates under extreme duress. With the Somali government in utter disarray, the international community must do everything it can to ensure that journalists in Somalia are able to work safely.”