Mukhtar Mohamed Hirabe

Radio Shabelle

June 8, 2009, in Mogadishu, Somalia

Hirabe, 48, was shot several times in the head by unidentified gunmen as he and a colleague, Ahmed Omar Hashi, were walking to work in the capital, local journalists told CPJ. Hashi, 41, was shot in the stomach and hand but survived. 

A veteran Radio Shabelle reporter, Hirabe took up the role as station director after the former director, Said Tahlil Ahmed, was murdered in February. A popular journalist, Hirabe had led a charity drive to help displaced Somali children in 2006. He was survived by two wives and five children.

Medium: Radio

Job: Editor

Beats Covered: Politics

Gender: Male

Local or Foreign: Local

Freelance: No

Type of Death: Murder

Suspected Source of Fire: Political Group

Impunity: Yes

Taken Captive: No

Tortured: No

Threatened: No

Related Articles:

• Evacuating Somali reporters who face unrelenting violence, August 18, 2011
• Getting Away With Murder, April 20, 2010
• Special Report: A Somali Journalist in Exile, April 13, 2010
• Somali journalists leave profession in fear as another dies, June 9, 2009
• Fifth Somali journalist killed this year, June 8, 2009