A Somali journalist working for state-run media was killed in Mogadishu on Saturday when a suicide bomber detonated a bomb in his car, according to government officials and his coworkers. Another journalist was hurt as well.
According to government spokesperson Mohamed Ibrahim Mo’alimuu, Abdiaziz Mohamud Guled, better known as Afrika, the director of state-run Radio Mogadishu, died of his wounds, while colleague journalist Sharmarke Warsame, who was travelling with Guled, suffered a severe injury.
Mogadishu police spokesperson Abdifatah Aden Hassan claimed in a brief statement that the incident was carried out by a suicide bomber.
“In the Bondhere sector of Mogadishu, a terrorist suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest ran towards the automobile in which the journalists were driving, leaped to the car window, and blew himself up,” Hasan added.
“He was a national hero, a brother, and a friend, and we are extremely devastated by his loss,” Somalia’s deputy minister for information, Abdirahman Yusuf Omar, posted on Facebook.
Guled was a well-known journalist who worked for a number of Mogadishu-based commercial radio and television stations before joining the Somali National TV and Radio more than a decade ago.
Guled used to be the producer of Gungaar, a popular government television program that meant “In-Depth.”
Guled questioned al-Shabab and ISIS suspects arrested in government jails by Somalia’s National Security Agency at least once in order to learn more about the terrorist organizations’ assaults and methods.
He was promoted and appointed as the director of the state-run Radio Mogadishu in November 2020.
