SOMALIA: Government strongly condemns the shooting of a Somali journalist

Somali Government strongly condemns the assassination attempt against Hassan Mohamed Abikar (Hassan Matoore), a Somali freelance journalist in Afgoye district Tuesday night. Al-Shabaab is responsible for this act.

At least three masked men, armed with pistols fired 4 shots at his chest while the journalist was at home resulting severe injuries. He was later taken to hospital.

Somalia minister of information, Abdirahman Omar Osman (Eng. Yarisow) said:
“We deplore this brutal attack against Hassan Matoore. Al-Shabaab has been constantly killing, making threats to Somali journalists. Luckily, Hassan survived for the assassination attempt and was later taking to hospital. Armed opposition groups, Hizbul-Islam and Al-Shabaab extremists want to silence the Somali media so that their atrocities go unreported. Extremists also want to rule by imposing fear and oppression to Somalis.

This is terrible news, and we hope Hassan makes speedy recovery and all media outlets should stand united for the sake of all journalists that continuously receive threats from Al-Shabaab. We shouldn’t allow extremists to win silencing journalists.”

Since 2007, Al-Shabaab assassinated 20 journalists in Somalia.

Source: Ministry of Information