Bomb assassination in Somalia. Co-founder of independent radio station dies hours after reporter is gunned down

Journalist Ali Imam Sharmarke was killed in Somalia yesterday in a roadside attack. AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

12 August 2007

Eight years after he left Ottawa in the hope of making a difference in his native Somalia, prominent journalist Ali Iman Sharmarke was assassinated yesterday in what colleagues said was an attempt to silence the country's independent media.

The 50-year-old co-founder of the HornAfrik media organization died when his vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Mogadishu hours after one of his most popular reporters was gunned down in the street outside one of the company's radio stations.

Mahad Ahmed Elmi, 30, had been shot four times in the head.

Sharmarke came to Canada in the mid-1990s and returned to Somalia in 1999 with two other Somali-born, Ottawa-based business partners.

They opened the nation's first independent radio station in the troubled capital. The venture proved controversial and has been shut for short periods by various ruling parties, including the current government.

In addition, HornAfrik's offices have been showered with bullets, including a particularly extensive assault in April that prompted Sharmarke to file a formal complaint with the government.

Because of the constant threat of violence, armed guards patrol the station at all hours and accompany reporters on assignments.

In the face of all this, Horn-Afrik has experienced great success and had opened a second radio station, as well as a television station.

"The perpetrators want to silence our voices in order to commit their crimes," Sharmarke said as he arrived at Elmi's funeral.

His slaying comes five years after the station was applauded by the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression for upholding "freedom of the press under challenging conditions." Ahmed Hashi, Somalia's former ambassador to East Germany and the UN who knew Sharmarke for almost two decades, called his friend's death a terrible loss.

"It is very sad that a person trying to help the people was assassinated by the same people he is trying to help," he said at his home in Ottawa.

"Having left a comfortable life in Canada in Ottawa, he opted to put his life on the line to promote peace and human rights for the Somali people." Hashi commended both men's efforts. "They died in service of the Somali people and the promotion of peace and harmony." Somali media organizations called Sharmarke's death an assassination, part of a deliberate campaign against the media.

Reporters Without Borders called on the government to act with urgency to protect journalists. "Somalia is already this year the most deadly country in Africa for the media," it said.

The National Union of Somali Journalists said six local journalists have been killed in the country in 2007.

"This wave of killing and injuring media people is an intentionally organized mission to silence journalistic voices in Somalia," the group said.

The day before Sharmarke and Elmi were killed, Radio Mogadishu journalist Abdihakin Omar Jimale was wounded by a gunshot to the shoulder.

Both of Sharmarke's partners, Mohamed Elmi (who is not related to the slain radio host) and Ahmed Abdisalam Adan, were in Canada when he was killed.

Sharmarke's wife, Lul Sharmarke, and two children were in Kenya yesterday. Mohamed Elmi spoke briefly yesterday with Lul by phone. "She could hardly speak," he said. "They were really terrified." All media outlets in Mogadishu voluntarily shut down yesterday in protest to the killings, Elmi said.

HornAfrik's co-founders are determined to continue the broadcasts.

"We believe it is an essential service to Somalia and for that country," Elmi said. "No matter how dangerous it is, we will keep doing what we are doing."

MELISSA ARSENIUK, CanWest News Service ; Reuters contributed to this report

Source: Gazette (Montreal)