He was killed for the sake of the truth. As he made his way to a pharmacy to find relief for an earache, two pistol-wielding men stepped out of a doorway and shot him multiple times in the back. Mohamed was turning a corner onto the same street when the shots rang out; close enough to witness the gunmen fleeing the scene. Yusuf succumbed to his injuries one week later in nearby Medina Hospital, becoming the 11th Somali journalist to be assassinated in He was 22 years old.
Though the attack occurred in broad daylight, no witnesses came forward, and no arrest has been made. Since the beginning of , 23 local journalists have been murdered in Somalia, making it the most dangerous country on the African continent for media workers. When you look around, no one is there. Mohamed, now 19, works as a journalist for Shabelle. Mohamed still lives in Medina β the Mogadishu neighbourhood where the majority of journalist assassinations have taken place β and he is terrified of being identified.
The next time I go outside, will they shoot me? Many barely go outside for fear of being gunned down, conducting the business of news gathering through mobile phone calls with networks of local tipsters. Moving around the city after dark is considered tantamount to suicide. Ringed in by concrete barricades and guarded by armed security 24 hours a day, the building resembles a barracks more than a broadcasting studio. Despite the grim fact that two of his predecessors have been assassinated, Ismaiil has no plans to leave Mogadishu.
His willingness to stay, he explains, stems from a profound belief that his work is vital to the recovery of war-torn Somalia. That, and a dash of Islamic fatalism. Somalia, which exited a year dictatorship in only to enter a year civil war, is not a place you would expect to find a thriving journalism scene. After the Somali state printing press was ransacked in , state-run newspapers disappeared overnight and the number of private radio stations in the capital exploded. Print media has also made a modest resurgence β despite the cost and uncertain security environment β with seven newspapers with circulations ranging from about to 1, Online news outlets number perhaps , mostly created and consumed by the over 3-million strong Somali diaspora.
The sheer number of media outlets combined with the limited advertisers in Somalia mean that virtually all of them rely on private benefactors. In the absence of any national regulatory framework governing the media, however, critics say that many stations amount to little more than soapboxes for private individuals seeking to advance their interests. Some suspect Yusuf of using Shabelle as a platform to advance his political ambitions. And there are others.
