Abdullahi Madkeer

New York, August 24, 2007—A young reporter returning from a journalism training workshop in the Somali capital of Mogadishu was shot dead today in southwestern Somalia when clan militiamen ambushed his vehicle, according to the National Union of Somali Journalists.

Abdulkadir Mahad Moallim Kaskey, a correspondent of the private, Mogadishu-based station Radio Banadir, was the only passenger killed when the truck he was in was shot at by gunmen. About 15 people in the Toyota pickup were traveling north of the southwestern commercial city of Bardera, in Gedo province, local journalist Mohamed Gaarane told CPJ. Kaskey died of a single bullet to the chest in the midnight incident, which left at least two other passengers wounded, Gaarane said.

New York, May 9, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists mourns the death on Saturday of Mohammed Abdullahi Khalif, a contributor to the private radio station Voice of Peace in Somalia’s northeastern, semi-autonomous region of Puntland. Khalif was killed by crossfire while covering an army raid on an illegal gun market in the city of Galkayo.

Khalif died from a bullet to the chest as soldiers were raiding the dealership to recover an assault rifle allegedly stolen from the army, according to the National Union of Somali Journalists and local journalists. One other person died and several others were wounded in the raid.

Somalia has had no effective central authority since the fall of dictator Siad Barre in 1991. A peace agreement in 2000, which led to the installation of the weak Transitional National Government (TNG) in the capital, Mogadishu, fueled the revival of independent media, including local radio stations, newspapers, and Internet sites. Somalia's high rate of illiteracy means that radio continues to be the most effective form of communication.

New York, January 2, 2004—A total of 36 journalists were killed worldwide as a direct result of their work in 2003, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). This is a sharp increase from 2002, when 19 journalists were killed. The war in Iraq was the primary reason for the increase, as 13 journalists, more than a third of this year's casualties, were killed in hostile actions.

In fact, according to CPJ's statistics, the death toll in Iraq was the highest annual total from a single country since 24 journalists were killed in Algeria in 1995 at the height of civil strife between the government and Islamist militants.