News website editor gunned down in Mogadishu

Reporters Without Borders is shocked and saddened to learn that Abdullahi Ali Hussein, the editor of the English-language section of the Somali online newspaper Waagasucub, was gunned down in the Mogadishu district of Dharkenley on 8 September. Also known by the pseudonym of Ano Gel, he was shot by unidentified gunmen who followed him as he left a mosque. He told a colleague last week that he had received telephone threats. No group has claimed responsibility but the way he was killed matches the methods used by Al-Shabaab, an Islamist militia responsible for murdering many journalists in the past. “Yet another journalist has been murdered in Somalia, a country where at least 37 media personnel have been killed in connection with their work in the past five years,” said Clea Kahn-Sriber, the head of the Reporters Without Borders Africa desk. “The Somali authorities must at all costs protect journalists instead of impotently standing by as the violence takes its toll. We urge the government to immediately launch an investigation aimed at identifying those who murder journalists and bringing them to justice.” Hussein had worked for years for Waagacusub, which often criticizes the situation in Somalia. As well as editing the English-language version, he also wrote sports stories. A reporter for another outlet said Waagacusub’s journalists have often been threatened in connection with their coverage of terrorism and corruption. Africa’s deadliest country for journalists in recent years, Somalia is ranked 172nd out of 180 countries in the 2015 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.